Bugzilla – Bug 1212356
Screen flickers (i915) and apps are slow
Last modified: 2023-09-29 15:52:07 UTC
Created attachment 867564 [details] dmesg output I switched from OpenSuse Leap 15.4 (Kernel 5.14.21-150500.53-default) to 15.5 (Kernel 6.3.7-lp154.2.gb5f9ff5-default) and I can now use the external monitor without Grub parameter (i915.force_probe=4628). On both versions the secondary screen flickers (15.4 with Grub parameter, 15.5 always). So I cannot use Slack (because the window content is not readable) and also the Zoom application is very slow (about one image per second). When I remove the Grub parameter in 15.4, all things will be fine (except the external monitor doesn't work). But in 15.5 I have no fallback solution.
Created attachment 867565 [details] lspci output
The system also crashes to different times, it seems to be also the i915 driver. See dmesg-crash output.
Created attachment 867588 [details] dmesg crash output
It seems also problem of the Xfce4. I have switched to an IceWM session temporary, there is no flicker but it also freezes my desktop 2 times per hour.
The desktop freeze I can solve with un/plugging the USB-C connector of the secondary monitor. After some seconds the mouse reacts again and I can use the desktop without reboot. The slow Zoom video conference I can speed up by maximizing the Zoom window (not fullscreen, but maximized). But it still flickers. If you normalize the window, you will have a slideshow. This is very annoying.
I have set in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf Section "Device" Identifier "Intel Graphics" Driver "intel" Option "Accel" "true" Option "AccelMethod" "sna" Option "TearFree" "false" Option "DRI" "false" EndSection The point was to disable DRI, the applications don't flicker any longer, Zoom seems also be fast now. I had also set DRI to "iris" (flickers) and "3" (very slow). Freezing desktop seems to be a problem of "synergy", which I have installed. After some time the app crashes and freezes the screen. I will monitor it.
Same here. I am pretty sure the old i915 kernel module does not properly drive newer hardware. My old laptop had Gen10 intel and everything was fine. New laptop has Gen12 intel and everything that touches GPU is dead slow. Also played with opts in xorg.conf.d but the only workable way is to disable gpu wherever it is possible. Firefox and Chrome are fairly straightforward. Gwenview does have an option. Running Kmail inside Kontact is click-wait-3secs-response. Kmail outside of Kontact is fine. Many of the systemsettings apps are really slow. Video playback is almost impossible. I edited the .desktop file of Signal to have its chrome backend disable gpu. Well let's hope the all new intel kernel module will make it this year.