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Asked: 2017-08-14 08:59:25 +0800 CST

"Solution" to Intel Graphics Screen Tearing/Flickering Causes Excessive Fan Use in Ubuntu 16.10/17.04/17.10

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Several users (one, two, three, four, five) have reported that Intel graphics cards cause severe screen tearing/flickering on Ubuntu >= 16.10. The oft-proposed "solution" is to add the boot parameter i915.enable_rc6=0.

However, while fixing the screen flickering/tearing, this "solution" causes the fan to run constantly (as in it never, ever turns off) and at an excessively high speed. I am posting this question to see if anyone has a remedy to the fan issue (or, in the alternative, to the flickering/tearing issue but without causing the fan issue).

For completeness, I am running Ubuntu 16.10/17.04/17.10 using kernel 4.11.0-10-generic on a Lenovo 910 (Kabylake) and my graphics card is VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 5916 (rev 02).

Note: I just confirmed that this problem still exists with the upstream kernel (v4.13.0-041300rc4). Reverting the kernel to the 16.04 LTS kernel fixes the screen tearing, but that is just a workaround. I recently (09.03.2017) tried the default Debian install with kernel 4.9.0-3-amd64, and there is no screen flickering (though the screen is rotated 90 degrees).

Note 2: Using the boot parameter i915.enable_rc6=0 leads to system degredation over extended use. I tried to watch a streaming video for 3 hours and the machine starting acting sluggish and unresponsive.

Note 3: I filed a bug report.

Note 4: This may not be relevant, but the screen tearing stops completely when the pointing device (trackpad) or the keyboard is in use.

drivers

3 Answers

  1. The correct solution would be to create the following file:

    /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel-graphics.conf

    having the following content:

    Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
   Driver      "intel"
   Option      "TripleBuffer" "true"
   Option      "TearFree"     "true"
   Option      "DRI"          "false"
EndSection

    Do not create these files in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d. That is the location for example configuration files for X, not the ones that are actually loaded.

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  2. I used these steps to fix screen flickering,

    sudo gedit /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel_flicker_fix.conf

    paste these lines,

    Section "Device"
  Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
  Driver      "intel"
  Option      "TripleBuffer" "true"
  Option      "TearFree"     "true"
EndSection

    save, reboot.

    If it still doesn't fix it, you can remove is using 

    sudo rm /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel_flicker_fix.conf
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  3. Best Answer

    I am not sure what solved the problem. I initially thought it was installing Ubuntu 17.10, which runs kernel 4.13.0-16. But I just returned to a backup of 17.04 and the 4.10.0-37-generic kernel ran fine.

    I am going to guess that the fix was actually upgrading the Lenovo firmware, which you can only do (to my knowledge) through Windows. I accidentally booted into Windows partition at one point, and endured the upgrade process. But I think that had to be what fixed it.

    Note: I also "solved" the problem before 17.10 was released by compiling and using the Kali Linux kernel.

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