[Dell XPS 13 9380] PSR causes screen flickering

[Ben Bromley]

Hello!

After the upgrade to the 5.8 series kernel to the 5.11 series kernel, I have noticed some screen flickering. I had the same problem previously on Fedora after upgrading to the 5.0 series kernel, but this was not present on Ubuntu 20.04 on either the 5.4 or 5.8 series kernels. On Fedora, it was fixed by turning off panel self-refresh on my Dell XPS 13 9380. I can try that again here if you all think it would be a useful piece of information. In the Fedora bug, it was reported that this problem is fixed in the 5.13 kernel. Let me know whatever else I can do.

Thanks!
Ben

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: xorg 1:7.7+19ubuntu14
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.11.0-25.27~20.04.1-generic 5.11.22
Uname: Linux 5.11.0-25-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.18
Architecture: amd64
BootLog: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/log/boot.log'
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CompositorRunning: None
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat Aug 7 18:56:38 2021
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: focal
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DpkgLog:

ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 620 (Whiskey Lake) [8086:3ea0] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Dell UHD Graphics 620 (Whiskey Lake) [1028:08af]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-06-24 (44 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04.2.0 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20210209.1)
MachineType: Dell Inc. XPS 13 9380
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/usr/bin/fish
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/BOOT/ubuntu_l80o1s@/vmlinuz-5.11.0-25-generic root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_l80o1s ro quiet splash vt.handoff=1
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 05/27/2021
dmi.bios.release: 1.14
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1.14.0
dmi.board.name: 0KTW76
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr1.14.0:bd05/27/2021:br1.14:svnDellInc.:pnXPS139380:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0KTW76:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.family: XPS
dmi.product.name: XPS 13 9380
dmi.product.sku: 08AF
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
version.compiz: compiz N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.105-3~20.04.1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 21.0.3-0ubuntu0.2~20.04.1
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx N/A
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.20.11-1ubuntu1~20.04.2
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev N/A
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:19.1.0-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20200226-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.16-1

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Yes please try turning off panel self refresh again by adding this kernel parameter:

  i915.enable_psr=0

[Ben Bromley (benuski)]

I have disabled PSR by adding the kernel parameter to /etc/default/grub and running sudo update-grub before rebooting. It has been a few hours, and the screen flickering has not recurred as of yet. I'll keep you updated if that changes.