Blank screen after boot

Ask Fedora
,
1

A blank screen or the computer reboots after the boot option selection screen. I found out after researching similar problems that I can boot setting acpi=off at startup on grub edit. Last kernel messages were

20260612041319
202606120413191920Ă—1440 482 KB

. It is a fresh install after I updated the BIOS. I could only install after setting the same kernel parameter. And I do not know how to debug further. My environment is

System:
  Kernel: 7.0.12-201.fc44.x86_64 arch: x86_64
    bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 16.1.1
  Desktop: GNOME v: 50.2 tk: GTK v: 3.24.52
    wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM Distro: Fedora Linux 44
    (Workstation Edition)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: N/A v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS
    v: Rev X.0x serial: <superuser required>
    part-nu: SKU Firmware: UEFI
    vendor: American Megatrends v: 3636
    date: 01/04/2026
Battery:
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0
    model: Logitech PRO X Wireless serial: <filter>
    charge: 55% status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: single core model: AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with
    Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: UP arch: Zen 3
    rev: 0 cache: L1: 64 KiB L2: 512 KiB L3: 16 MiB
  Speed (MHz): 4600 min/max: N/A core: 1: 4600
    bogomips: 7599
  Flags-basic: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3
    sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 33
    [Radeon RX 7600/7600 XT/7600M XT/7600S/7700S /
    PRO W7600] vendor: Gigabyte driver: N/A
    arch: RDNA-3 pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 8
    bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:7480
  Display: wayland server: X.Org v: 24.1.12
    with: Xwayland v: 24.1.12 compositor: gnome-shell
    driver: dri: swrast gpu: N/A display-ID: :0
    screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1024x768 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: Unknown-1 mapped: None-1 res: 1024x768
    hz: 60 dpi: 96
  API: OpenGL v: 4.5 vendor: mesa v: 26.0.8
    glx-v: 1.4 es-v: 3.2 direct-render: yes
    renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 22.1.5 256 bits)
    device-ID: ffffffff:ffffffff
  API: EGL Message: EGL data requires eglinfo.
    Check --recommends.
  Info: Tools: api: glxinfo x11: xdriinfo,
    xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 31
    HDMI/DP Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 8 bus-ID: 03:00.1
    chip-ID: 1002:ab30
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI]
    Renoir/Cezanne HDMI/DP Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie:
    speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 0b:00.1
    chip-ID: 1002:1637
  Device-3: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Ryzen HD
    Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 0b:00.6 chip-ID: 1022:15e3
  Device-4: FiiO KA11
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-2:3
    chip-ID: 2972:0081
  Device-5: HP HyperX SoloCast
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB
    rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 5-1:2
    chip-ID: 03f0:078b
  API: ALSA v: k7.0.12-201.fc44.x86_64
    status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.6.6 status: active with:
    1: pipewire-pulse status: active 2: wireplumber
    status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: e000 bus-ID: 09:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8125
  IF: enp9s0 state: up speed: 2500 Mbps
    duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: wg0-mullvad state: unknown speed: N/A
    duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: TP-Link UB500 Adapter driver: btusb
    v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1
    bus-ID: 1-3:4 chip-ID: 2357:0604
  Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up
    address: <filter> bt-v: 5.1 lmp-v: 10
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 3.22 TiB
    used: 13.92 GiB (0.4%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Lexar
    model: SSD NM620 1TB size: 953.87 GiB
    speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter>
    temp: 35.9 C
  ID-2: /dev/nvme1n1 vendor: Lexar
    model: SSD NM620 512GB size: 476.94 GiB
    speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter>
    temp: 34.9 C
  ID-3: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital
    model: WD10EZEX-00WN4A0 size: 931.51 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> temp: 33 C
  ID-4: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate
    model: ST1000DM010-2EP102 size: 931.51 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 1.39 TiB used: 13.42 GiB (0.9%)
    fs: btrfs dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
  ID-2: /boot size: 1.9 GiB used: 492.2 MiB (25.3%)
    fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB
    used: 20 MiB (3.3%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
  ID-4: /home size: 1.39 TiB used: 13.42 GiB (0.9%)
    fs: btrfs dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB
    used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100 dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 44.8 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
  Memory: total: 16 GiB note: est.
    available: 15.41 GiB used: 3.71 GiB (24.1%)
  Processes: 261 Power: uptime: 10m wakeups: 0
    Init: systemd v: 259 default: graphical
  Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm
    pm: flatpak pkgs: 14 Compilers: N/A Shell: Bash
    v: 5.3.9 running-in: ptyxis-agent inxi: 3.3.40
2

After researching more about ACPI I found out in ACPI modules - ArchWiki at 4.3 Boot-looping that disabling the ACPI C-State driver could solve the issue and it did. Step one got me to login screen but the system freezes. Then I followed step two’s first item setting processor.max_cstate=0 and it solved my issue. But I am not sure why and what are the drawbacks of disabling it.

3

That command basically turns off the processors ability to save power by ramping down it’s clocks and turning parts of itself off. It tells it that the processor to behave as though it were currently executing instructions (State 0) and never go to any lower level of idleness.

Modern processors spend most of their time at C9, C8 C7, etc. effectively doing nothing, on average. Your CPU will always be like a tweaker, jacked up on phet, two lines of coke and a pint of ether, as you tell it that the max it can rest is “never”.

If this is a laptop, then you might care about this as your battery life will be impacted for the worse.

If it’s a desktop then you may not give a hoot about this.

4

So, could I assume something is wrong with my motherboard’s firmware?

5

Not wrong per se - just sub-optimal.

You may well find that it’s not playing nicely with the current version of kernel, power management or something else and that reverting to an earlier kernel corrects it (in which case you can file a regression) or an upcoming 7.1 kernel actually corrects whatever the problem is caused by as someone else has diagnosed it and reported it.

Maybe a BIOS update will be brought out by ASUS when they get reports that their BIOS is breaking power management with the kernel as it’s bugged.

It may also be that the brute force “for the CPU to never ramp down” is far too much of a hammer for the small nut that needs cracking and that a more considered adjustment to the ACPI settings is all that is required.