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While working with my DELL XPS 13 laptop (shipped with Ubuntu), sometimes colored horizontal lines appear (I cannot recreate the beahvior, it seems random). I tried attaching an external monitor to see if the behavior pesists on the other monitor: nevertheless, it seems these lines don't appear anymore even on my laptop when an external monitor is attached.

Any hint? See photo.

EDIT: my info PC model: Dell XPS 13 9320 OS: Ubuntu 22.04 Processor: 12th Gen Intel Core i7 1260Px16 RAM: 32 GB Graphic: MESA Intel Graphics (ADL GT2)

EDIT: don't put attention on the info you see in the photo: they concern another post I was looking at, not my computer. I could take the photo in that moment as the issue suddenly appeared.

EDIT: I formatted the laptop downgrading to Ubuntu 20 and it worked fine for one day, until updating it. Then, the problem came back. Lowering the resolution helps a bit but does not solve the issue. All built-in DELL diagnostic tests give no problems.

enter image description here

CuriousGuy
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    It looks like Ubuntu 18.04, but why the title says "Ubuntu 22"? – Pilot6 Feb 19 '23 at 13:03
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    because my OS is Ubtuntu 22. That one is only a page from firefox (I was searching for info on the issue). – CuriousGuy Feb 19 '23 at 13:06
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    It is a hardware problem. The monitor internal cable is probably bad. BTW there is no "Ubuntu 22" desktop release. – Pilot6 Feb 19 '23 at 13:08
  • How come the behavior is not present when connected to an external monitor? (Not even on my laptop!).

    More info: the PC was shipped with Ubuntu 20 but an update was already suggested when booting.

     – CuriousGuy Feb 19 '23 at 13:12
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    The contact can be unstable. You moved your laptop and the contact became better. – Pilot6 Feb 19 '23 at 13:14
  • any suggestion on how to solve the issue? – CuriousGuy Feb 19 '23 at 13:15
  • Take the laptop to a repair place. – Pilot6 Feb 19 '23 at 13:20
  • In the bios menu the issue is not present. DELL diagnostic test finds nothing. The moment the OS is loaded, if I move the mouse I can see the issue. I am still not convinced it's the hardware – CuriousGuy Feb 19 '23 at 13:34
  • @guiverc is this related to my problem? – CuriousGuy Feb 20 '23 at 14:00
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    I have exactly the same issue after the latest update. Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu 22.04 preinstalled. The lines appear in the exact same spots as in the OP's photo if I move the mouse cursor slowly. Sorry could not write this as a comment - not enough rep. But I think it's important to confirm that the OP is not alone. It looks like a software/driver issue to me. – Ivan K. Feb 20 '23 at 09:56
  • This seems like a cable/hardware issue. I would try first ensuring the cable is tightly connected and screwed in if there are screws, if that doesn't work then I would try a different cable. – Maximilian Ballard Feb 22 '23 at 17:54
  • i have the exact same problem, doesn't happen on bios screen, doesn't happen on ubuntu instalation screen. actually brazilian dell support brought me here asking for downgrade – rado Feb 22 '23 at 18:17
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    Here another one. I have the same problem. Did some updates yesterday and now have the same problem (same dell hardware, Ubuntu 22). I very much doubt this is a hardware problem (or coincidentally this many people have the same hardware issues at the approximate same time) . Reducing the resolution reduces the problem. But on 1260P resolution the lines appear at the top and below/middle when the mouse is hovered over that specific area below/middle. – Hilbrand Bouwkamp Feb 22 '23 at 20:30
  • I have exactly the same issue (same machine, same OS, same horizontal lines) after recent updates: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1456219/problems-after-updates-on-dell-xps-plus-9320 https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/Problems-after-Ubuntu-updates-on-Dell-XPS-Plus-9320-Developer/m-p/8354773#M107228 – tcquinn Feb 23 '23 at 00:23
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    Quick workaround: If problems have only occurred in the last few days; it's likely related to the HWE kernel stack update that rolled out last week... just reboot & try the last GA (5.15) kernel you have installed & check if the problem occurs there; an easy fix maybe to switch to the GA kernel stack if you're using a 22.04 system (not 22) & desktop (and installed with an ISO that defaults to HWE stack). Both stacks can co-exist on an install (though some closed-source kernel modules [nvidia etc] can prevent both stacks co-existing) – guiverc Feb 23 '23 at 00:28
  • Does your monitor have a slightly yellowish white cast? I found it strange when I compared it with another notebook from another brand that I have. I have the same problem with the colored horizontal lines. – Pedro Rafael Feb 26 '23 at 12:46
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    Hi all, we have identified this issue to be related to PSR2 being enabled in the 5.19 linux kernel by default, which introduces the issue for this laptop mentioned in this question. We are tracking this issue in bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/2007516. For anyone who have this issue on your XPS 9320 and have the ability to test kernels, please try the test kernels posted at people.canonical.com/~khfeng/lp2007516, and leave your test results in bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/2007516. If you'd like to help but not sure how to, please reach out to me, thanks! – Anthony Wong Feb 27 '23 at 06:43
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    FYI I had the exact same issue on a brand new Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 10. Turning off PSR as described in the accepted answer did the trick. – Dmitry Pashkevich Mar 02 '23 at 05:48

3 Answers3

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Update: I managed to get my ticket escalated with Dell technical support and the next tier has been quite helpful. They say Dell engineering has opened a ticket with Canonical and they are working on a fix. In the meantime, they suggested adding the parameter i915.enable_psr=0 to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT string in /etc/default/grub, so (at least on my machine), the relevant line becomes

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i915.enable_psr=0"

I made this change, ran sudo update-grub, rebooted into the 5.19 kernel, and I don't have the video artifacts anymore.

tcquinn
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  • Does your monitor have a slightly yellowish white cast? I found it strange when I compared it with another notebook from another brand that I have.

    I have the same problem with the colored horizontal lines.

     – Pedro Rafael Feb 26 '23 at 12:19
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I have the exact same problem. The horizontal line appear when I move my cursor slowly at the height where the lines appear. I haven't tried it with an external mouse and/or on a external monitor. I found an article that suggest to check the resolution and refresh rate. The technical specification mention a resolution of 1920 x 1200 and a refresh rate of 60 Hz. I have no idea how the change the refresh rate, but when I changed the resolution I found out that for a resolution of 1680 x 1050, the lines did not show up at the same spot and not as often. They do still appear, but it is less obnoxious.

I know it is not a good solution, but you can try to change the resolution.

EDIT: I followed the advice from @guiverc and downgrade to 5.15.0-60-generic using the instructions given in here. This gets rid of the lines

Pieter Vermeulen
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  • Reducing the resolution indeed improve the situation even if it does not solve it. – CuriousGuy Feb 20 '23 at 16:20
  • Did this issue appear since last weekend, or did you have it before? – CuriousGuy Feb 21 '23 at 21:32
  • I have the pc only since last week, but I can't remember if it occurred after I did sudo apt update – Pieter Vermeulen Feb 22 '23 at 09:15
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    I can also confirm that booting with kernel 5.15.0 prevents the problem. The GRUB boot screen doesn't appear on my machine by default (Dell XPS Plus 9320), but it's there if you hit ESC at the right moment in the boot cycle. – tcquinn Feb 23 '23 at 12:51
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    Any ideas on a longer-term solution? Holding back all future kernel updates seems untenable, and I worry that we could wait a long time for an upstream fix because these particular Dell machines are such a small part of the Ubuntu community and Ubuntu is such a small part of the Dell user base. – tcquinn Feb 23 '23 at 12:53
  • I can confirm I have the exact same issue with Ubuntu 22.04 on Dell XPS 13 9315. Booting with an older version of the kernel solves the problem. The problem started around Feb 2023 for many users , its likely introduced by a kernel update and is not a hardware issue. – nvk Feb 27 '23 at 10:42
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This is most likely a hardware issue. Since the laptop is still very new, I would recommend seeking a warranty repair through Dell.

QwertyChouskie
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  • It isn't. I formatted the laptop and the problem disappeared. Also, all the other answers pointing out the same problem hint that this is not a hardware issue. – CuriousGuy Feb 20 '23 at 13:59
  • The problem appeared again after updating Ubuntu 20 with a normal sudo apt update command – CuriousGuy Feb 21 '23 at 21:46
  • It's not a hardware issue. It started happening for all of us at almost exactly the same time, after recent apt updates – tcquinn Feb 23 '23 at 00:24