Horizontal sparks on the screen, caused by driver or a electrical fault?

[Aknot]

I have some weird horizontal "noise" flickering on the screen, almost like sparks, can this be caused by the graphics driver? Best seen in the lower right corner.

Zoom

The VGA adapter is a AMD Radeon and I have tried TearFree true.

Radeon.conf is set to modesetting on pci0:1:5:0.

Thanks,

 

[Maxnix]

Can't tell for sure, but wouldn't be surprised if it was the cable.

 

[Aknot]

...wouldn't be surprised if it was the cable...

I actually read that this was common, but these sparks doesn't change at all, when moving the lid back and forth.
I have cleaned the connector with alcohol and a cotton swab too, just to be sure, no difference.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

Tap and press at that spot to see if they change at all. If they do, it's the display.

 

[kent_dorfman766]

Historically those types of glitches are more often caused by driver/os issues.

 

[Espionage724]

can this be caused by the graphics driver?

I've seen rare similar artifacting with Intel UHD 630; it'd show on some things like Thunar window parts like a black line or dotted. I do interesting Mesa envs globally and force Intel DDX and figure it's something with that (seen it on Linux too Xfce/Intel DDX/no compositor)

Mostly guessing, but I would think AMD on Plasma 6 would do something different (Xfce no compositor + Intel DDX probably mixes 2D paths; AMDGPU and modern DEs are all-3D; while I've seen artifacting on Xfce stuff, I didn't see it in 3D games and wouldn't expect the same ordeal to affect AMD + Plasma 6 at desktop)

Do the artifacts disappear if you hover something over it? If on the desktop, what about dragging a selection box (like if going to select multiple desktop icons) over the spot?

 

[Aknot]

Espionage724 I actually had to film this, and yes, they go away when moving a window pass the sparks Never seen this before

 

[Espionage724]

I wonder how Plasma 6 renders the desktop background? I can't imagine it's repainting a static image at vsync or rendering it on GPU, but that almost looks like what's happening.

I'd try different desktop alternatives (iirc one was no icons/default, one with icons shown, and others like video wallpaper downloadable).

Radeon.conf is set to modesetting on pci0:1:5:0.

I'd try amdgpu driver (pkg install something like xf86-video-amdgpu)

 

[Aknot]

Thanks Espionage724 , this is what I currently have:

# pciconf -lv | grep -B4 VGA
vgapci0@pci0:1:5:0:     class=0x030000 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x1002 device=0x9712 subvendor=0x103c subdevice=0x1664
    vendor     = 'Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]'
    device     = 'RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]'
    class      = display
    subclass   = VGA

# kldstat  
Id Refs Address                Size Name
3    1 0xffffffff83420000   14edf8 radeonkms.ko
10    1 0xffffffff8361a000     29e0 radeon_RS780_pfp_bin.ko
11    1 0xffffffff8361d000     74e0 radeon_RS780_me_bin.ko
12    1 0xffffffff83625000     2ce0 radeon_R600_rlc_bin.ko
13    1 0xffffffff83628000    18118 radeon_RS780_uvd_bin.ko

Where can I find what driver name (.ko) to load from xf86-video-amdgpu?

 

[Alain De Vos]

Maybe do,

pkg install drm-kmod gpu-firmware-kmod
sysrc kld_list+="/boot/modules/radeonkms.ko"
...
Driver     "radeon"
...

?

 

[Espionage724]

Where can I find what driver name (.ko) to load from xf86-video-amdgpu?

I guessed that Intel's would be intel like Linux for xorg.conf (I'd try amdgpu; might have misunderstood though if it's the kld_list load driver instead)

Edit: amdgpu seems right for kld: https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/#x-configuration-amd

sysrc kld_list+=amdgpu

But radeon on xorg.conf is interesting: https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/#x-config-gpu (iirc on Linux that'd do the older radeon driver and not work on amdgpu/modern hw)