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Screen starts flickering, problem with Xorg and integrated intel graphics

Hi I'm experiencing a bug that makes working with my laptop a pain in the ***.
I'm using linux mint 12 with gnome 3. Kernel Version: 3.0.0-13-generic on an dell vostro 3550 laptop with intel core i7 and amd radeon hd 6600m (hybrid graphics)

Because I don't want to use the radeon card (too much power consumption i used this fix for hybrid graphics that turns off the radeon card and lets linux use the intel integrated card:
added "blacklist radeon" to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
added:

Code:

modprobe radeon

echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

to rc.local

After I boot everything works fine for about 20-60 minutes then, without any good reason, my screen starts flickering when editing text or browsing or similar stuff. (How often depends on the stuff I do, if i use a text editor it's like once per second). The bad thing is that i loose mouse focus every time it flickers. If I want to mark some text it will stop marking it, if i right click to open any menu it will be closed before i can click on an item. It's very annoying.
Every time the screen flickers these lines are added to the Xorg.0.log:

Code:

[ 12867.010] (II) intel(0): EDID vendor "LGD", prod id 739

[ 12867.010] (II) intel(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:

[ 12867.010] (II) intel(0): Modeline "1366x768"x0.0  76.00  1366 1402 1450 1564  768 771 776 810 -hsync -vsync (48.6 kHz)

[ 12867.010] (II) intel(0): Modeline "1366x768"x0.0  51.00  1366 1402 1450 1564  768 771 776 814 -hsync -vsync (32.6 kHz)

I searched the web and asked in forums but there doesn't seem to be an easy solution to this. Most of the people say it's a driver issue, so I thought about upgrading the intel driver. The thing is that I'm kind of a linux noob and I don't want to mess things up if I compile the driver from source.

My questions are:

what should i do to fix it?

Do you think it's a driver issue and will be resolved by installing those intel drivers: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/2011Q4.html

How can I install them? I tried ./configure for the xf86-video-intel driver and it says:

Code:

configure: error: Package requirements (xorg-server >= 1.6 xproto fontsproto pixman-1 >= 0.16 ) were not met:

But xorg-server should be installed right?

Maybe it has something to do with the hybrid graphics stuff and the fix i used to turn of the radeon card?

related forum posts:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/94306...vo-y460-laptop
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/inde...t-1559264.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11550127

I found this website which suggests adding this to your kernel boot options:

Quote:

Notes

The Intel GPU supports C6 sleep states wich is currently disabled (3.0 and some before). To save energy put i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 to the boot options of your Kernel.

You might want to try restoring the functionality of your Radeon card, and adding the above to your kernel boot options.

Hi thanks for the answer, i will try it out.

Hi again, adding i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 to the boot options doesn't change anything. With or without the radeon card enabled i still get the flickering screen.

This answers the question wether or not disabeling the radeon card has anything to do with it. Apperently not. I will keep it turned off because I don't want to use it anyway and it uses too much power.

I noticed though that the flickering happens more often if I open eclipse. So laptop runs normally until I open Eclipse, then it starts flickering and the above mentioned messages get added to Xorg.log. But it's not necessary to open eclipse for the bug to appear.

I think my best bet would be to install the new driver from the intel site can anyone help me do that please?

You could try:

Code:

dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Quote:

Originally Posted by impert (Post 4589628)

You could try:

Code:

dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Hi,

I ran this command but the screen keeps on flickering. I restarted the laptop and its still there.

I noticed that some other lines get sometimes mixed with the above mentioned lines in Xorg.log:

Code:

XKB: reuse xkmfile /var/lib/xkb/server-6EDD3E719D2B0973D03641546DA8CCADCE7019E5.xkm

Code:

 

[  2116.810] (II) XKB: reuse xkmfile /var/lib/xkb/server-6EDD3E719D2B0973D03641546DA8CCADCE7019E5.xkm

[  2116.810] (II) intel(0): EDID vendor "LGD", prod id 739

[  2116.810] (II) intel(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:

[  2116.810] (II) intel(0): Modeline "1366x768"x0.0  76.00  1366 1402 1450 1564  768 771 776 810 -hsync -vsync (48.6 kHz)

[  2116.810] (II) intel(0): Modeline "1366x768"x0.0  51.00  1366 1402 1450 1564  768 771 776 814 -hsync -vsync (32.6 kHz)

[  2117.459] (II) XKB: reuse xkmfile /var/lib/xkb/server-6EDD3E719D2B0973D03641546DA8CCADCE7019E5.xkm

[  2118.252] (II) XKB: reuse xkmfile /var/lib/xkb/server-6EDD3E719D2B0973D03641546DA8CCADCE7019E5.xkm

[  2118.254] (II) intel(0): EDID vendor "LGD", prod id 739

[  2118.254] (II) intel(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:

[  2118.254] (II) intel(0): Modeline "1366x768"x0.0  76.00  1366 1402 1450 1564  768 771 776 810 -hsync -vsync (48.6 kHz)

[  2118.254] (II) intel(0): Modeline "1366x768"x0.0  51.00  1366 1402 1450 1564  768 771 776 814 -hsync -vsync (32.6 kHz)

[  2118.441] (II) XKB: reuse xkmfile /var/lib/xkb/serve

I'm using a Workaround for the problem right now.
I switched my desktop environment to xfce. I switched from ubuntu to mint because I hate unity but gnome 3 kinda sucked to. So I'm very happy with xfce now and will keep it.
I don't have the flickering with xfce and lxde but with lxde i couldn't change some configurations like mouse speed and i think xfce looks better (more similar to gnome 2). I won't mark this thread solved for now, because the problem still exists with gnome 3

Please check the video cable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tailinlinux (Post 4589849)

Please check the video cable.

haha you're funny

Quote:

Originally Posted by snoop234 (Post 4590401)

haha you're funny

Just kidding.