Screen flickering problem

[satimis]

Hi all,

Just purchased a new Dell 4K 31.5" U3219Q display. It flickers now and then occasionally, turning to a black screen and back in about 5 to 15 seconds. It happens sometimes automatically and another time when I click the mouse.

The HDMI cable is having metal shell soven mesh cover and ferrite bead at both ends.

Please advise how to fix the problem?

Thanks

[stevepusser]

So you are saying this problem did not occur with the other display?

Have you considered that maybe it's just a bad monitor? This could be discounted if you can get other operating systems to run on your machine without those issues.

[satimis]

So you are saying this problem did not occur with the other display?

Have you considered that maybe it's just a bad monitor? This could be discounted if you can get other operating systems to run on your machine without those issues.

Hi,

After reconnecting the PC to Dell 25" display, which has been running for >10 years, the mentioned problem gone. It is the old display connected to this PC.

According to my recollection the said problem also happened to the old Dell 25" display before. The retainer supplied me a HDMI cable with metal mesh cover and Ferrite beads at both ends then the problem gone. Later the said HDMI cable was broken and I changed another HDMI cable without metal mesh cover and without Ferrite beads at both ends. But the problem never comes back until now.

I connected the running HDMI cable to the new Dell 31.5" display but problem still occurred. Then I purchased a new HDMI cable with metal mesh cover and Ferrite beads at both ends. Problem still remained.

Just called the seller. They gave me the tel number of Dell Technical support here, requesting me to contact Dell for help. I'll call Dell later.

Regards

[satimis]

Hi,

Further to my last posting.

Reply from Dell technical support to my phone call, saying

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About your monitor model U3219Q.
It's not a power cord fault, it's the monitor itself....

Contacted the reseller again replying that if they can find the defect as claimed by me they will replace it with a new display. I'll bring the faulty display to them day after tomorrow

[satimis]

Hi stevepusser.

Further to my last posting.

I brought the new Dell U3219Q to the seller. They tested it there and there was no problem discovered. They tested it with HDMI connection. The seller told me that the problem flickering to dark screen now and then may be caused on account of the graphic card. However there is no graphic card on my computer. The graphic is controlled by AMD cpu.

Configuration of my desktop PC
$ lspci -nnk | grep VGA -A1

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08:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Picasso [1002:15d8] (rev c8)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:876b]

Hardware Info:

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CPU:
AMD Ryzen 5 3400G with Radeon Vega Graphics
1 physical process; 4 core; 8 threads

RAM:
30791648 KiB
Motherboard:
System Version/PRIME X570-P (ASUSTek Computer inc)

Graphics:
3840x2160
(Unknown)
The X.Org Foundation

Storage:
ATA HGST HUS&26T$TAL
ASUS DRAW-24D5MT
Audio-Intel-HD-Audio Generic

Any advice? Thanks

Regards

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Have you installed the firmware-amd-graphics package? Third generation Ryzen will probably work better with the kernel (metapackage) & firmware from the buster-backports repository. See if you can find my [FAQ] threads about them.

And try the lspci command without the grep — you've passed the -k switch to show the kernel driver but cropped out the line which provides that information...

[sunrat]

Have you installed the firmware-amd-graphics package? Third generation Ryzen will probably work better with the kernel (metapackage) & firmware from the buster-backports repository. See if you can find my [FAQ] threads about them.

And try the lspci command without the grep — you've passed the -k switch to show the kernel driver but cropped out the line which provides that information...

Or grep 3 lines instead of 1:

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lspci -k |grep -A3 VGA

It would also have been helpful to include information about your graphics card and Debian version in your first post. By saying it worked on an old monitor I inferred you were running an old system too.
Now we know your hardware, the Head man's advice is your best bet (as usual ).

[satimis]

Hi Head

Thanks for your advice.

I have made following tests;
1) Reading documents - almost no flickering
2) Browse 4K video online - no flickering
3) Browse non 4K video online - flickering occasionally
4) Browse non 4K video online and select Use=Movie on the Dell 32" 4K display - almost no flickering

Have you installed the firmware-amd-graphics package? Third generation Ryzen will probably work better with the kernel (metapackage) & firmware from the buster-backports repository. See if you can find my [FAQ] threads about them.

Whether following links are relevant;

firmware-amd-graphics
https://packages.debian.org/stretch/fir ... d-graphics

Firmware-amd-graphics Download for Linux (deb)
https://pkgs.org/download/firmware-amd-graphics

And try the lspci command without the grep — you've passed the -k switch to show the kernel driver but cropped out the line which provides that information...

Running lspci on Terminal the output is a large file. I have saved the output as lspci.txt file but I'm not allowed to attached it here.

Warning - The extension txt is not allowed.

Thanks

Regards

[satimis]

.......
Or grep 3 lines instead of 1:

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lspci -k |grep -A3 VGA

$ lspci -k |grep -A3 VGA

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08:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Picasso (rev c8)
        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 876b
        Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
        Kernel modules: amdgpu

It would also have been helpful to include information about your graphics card .....

No graphic card here. The graphic is generated by AMD CPU

Thanks

Regards

[Head_on_a_Stick]

So have you tried the kernel metapackage and firmware from buster-backports?

Don't download anything from that pkgs.org site, they could be supplying malware. Use the official Debian packages page or the actual repositories instead, all of those package are completely reproducible.

[stevepusser]

And you posted a link to the Stretch deb download page, not the Buster one.

But we have no idea if you're using a good video driver or the fallback crummy framebuffer or vesa one. Install inxi and show us the result of "inxi -G" in the terminal so we do have a clue, please.

[satimis]

And you posted a link to the Stretch deb download page, not the Buster one.

But we have no idea if you're using a good video driver or the fallback crummy framebuffer or vesa one. Install inxi and show us the result of "inxi -G" in the terminal so we do have a clue, please.

Hi,

Thanks for your further advice.

$ inxi -G

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Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Picasso
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.20.8 )
           drivers: fbdev,ati (unloaded: modesetting,vesa,radeon)
           Resolution: 3840x2160@60.00hz
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD RAVEN (DRM 3.35.0, 5.4.0-48-generic, LLVM 10.0.0)
           version: 4.6 Mesa 20.0.8

Regards

[stevepusser]

Where did the 5.4.0 "generic" kernel and Mesa 20.0.8 come from? That's an Ubuntu kernel and probably the version of Mesa in an Ubuntu release. Buster has an older Mesa--18.6 if I remember correctly.

We can't use the driver information from another OS to troubleshoot Buster, even though it does show it using the lousier framebuffer driver instead of a preferred radeon driver.

[sgosnell]

I get the flickering and black screen you mention when my computer runs 3840x2160@60.00hz. Changing the refresh rate to 30Hz gives a perfectly stable display. Newer monitors and newer graphics cards can sometimes be problematic. Try changing the refresh rate to 30Hz, and if that doesn't help, to something else, perhaps 50Hz or whatever the graphics card allows. My Intel NUC wih 10th gen CPU always starts up at the highest resolution the monitor supports, and at 60Hz. The display is erratic until I get logged in to the desktop, where the resolution is set properly. I haven't figured out a way to get the 30Hz refresh rate during boot. I just live with it, awaiting a possible fix in a newer kernel.

[metreo]

I have a pair of high definition Dell monitors they have been great, too bad about your faulty purchase.