For roughly a month I’d had Fedora 42 KDE on my family desktop and all was going smoothly. One day, out of the blue (probably after some kind of system updates and a restart), the computer started having issues. While there were occasionally black screens or no output at all, the most consistent issue is what I guess I could describe as “micro-stuttering”—every ~1 second while moving my cursor, the cursor would freeze for a moment before continuing. If I’m dragging a window while this happens, the window snaps back to where it started and I cannot drag it further without clicking on it again. Generally, the Wayland session just seems to be struggling. I’ll give you some of my specs, some of the more interesting diagnostic results I’ve gotten, and finally list some unsuccessful troubleshooting I’ve done that’s probably not helpful.
Specs
OS was originally F42 KDE, but hoping it would magically fix everything, I updated to F43 KDE. No change in symptoms.
inxi -Fxz
System:
Kernel: 6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.2.1
Console: pty pts/1 Distro: Fedora Linux 43 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition)
Machine:
Type: Desktop System: Dell product: XPS 8900 v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Dell model: 0XJ8C4 v: A00 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Dell v: 2.9.1
date: 12/22/2020
CPU:
Info: quad core model: Intel Core i7-6700 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake-S rev: 3 cache:
L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB L3: 8 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 3700 min/max: 800/4000 cores: 1: 3700 2: 3700 3: 3700 4: 3700 5: 3700
6: 3700 7: 3700 8: 3700 bogomips: 54398
Flags-basic: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA GA106 [Geforce RTX 3050] vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: nvidia v: 580.95.05
arch: Ampere bus-ID: 01:00.0
Display: unspecified server: X.org v: 1.21.1.20 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9 driver:
gpu: nv_platform,nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch tty: 125x46 resolution: 3840x2160
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: nvidia,swrast platforms: active: gbm,surfaceless,device
inactive: wayland,x11,device-1
API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: mesa v: 25.2.6 note: console (EGL sourced)
renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050/PCIe/SSE2, llvmpipe (LLVM 21.1.4 256 bits)
API: Vulkan v: 1.4.321 drivers: nvidia,llvmpipe surfaces: N/A devices: 2
Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor
gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi wl: wayland-info x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
Device-2: NVIDIA GA106 High Definition Audio vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1
API: ALSA v: k6.17.8-300.fc43.x86_64 status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.9 status: off
Network:
Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-V vendor: Dell driver: e1000e v: kernel port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6
IF: enp0s31f6 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter driver: rtl8723be v: kernel
port: d000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: wlp2s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB bus-ID: 1-11:9
Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: down bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block:
hardware: no software: no address: <filter> bt-v: 4.0 lmp-v: 6
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 202.78 GiB (21.8%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Crucial model: CT1000BX500SSD1 size: 931.51 GiB temp: 25 C
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 929.93 GiB used: 201.97 GiB (21.7%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda3
ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 802.7 MiB (82.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 19.3 MiB (3.2%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1
ID-4: /home size: 929.93 GiB used: 201.97 GiB (21.7%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda3
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 27.6 C pch: 38.5 C mobo: 21.9 C gpu: nvidia temp: 34 C
Fan Speeds (rpm): cpu: 1206 mobo: 997 fan-2: 1377 fan-3: 1496 fan-4: 1492
Info:
Memory: total: 16 GiB available: 15.52 GiB used: 3.71 GiB (23.9%)
Processes: 418 Uptime: 18m Init: systemd
Packages: 8 note: see --rpm Compilers: gcc: 15.2.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.3.0 inxi: 3.3.39
My monitor is a 4k TV.
lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display' gives:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GA106 [Geforce RTX 3050] (rev a1)
Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] Device c979
Kernel driver in use: nvidia
Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
dnf list akmod-nvidia* gives under installed packages akmod-nvidia.x86_64 3:580.95.05-1.fc43 @commandline.
Interesting Diagnostics
I’m not a terminal guru, some of these commands were suggested by generative AI.
I installed X11 and temporarily loaded an X11 session, getting very similar issues.
The command top -H -p $(pidof kwin_x11 kwin_wayland plasma-shell) shows kwin_wayland taking 30%-50% of the CPU.
sudo lspci -s 01:00.0 -vv | grep -i width gives:
LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 8GT/s, Width x16, ASPM L0s L1, Exit Latency L0s <1us, L1 <4us
LnkSta: Speed 8GT/s, Width x8 (downgraded)
which I think suggests half the pcie lanes aren’t being used?
sudo journalctl -b | grep -i kwin | tail -n 10 gives a lot of messages like “fedora kwin_wayland_wrapper[1926]: Key repeat discarded, Wayland compositor doesn’t seem to be processing events fast enough!”
Unsuccessful troubleshooting
I went to great effort to roll back the RPM Fusion NVIDIA driver from 580.105.08 to 580.95.05, and I’m quite sure I was successful in the roll back. No effect on this problem though. Should I roll back farther?
I set /etc/environment as follows, no change to my symptoms.
__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia
GBM_BACKEND=nvidia-drm
__GL_GSYNC_ALLOWED=0
__GL_VRR_ALLOWED=0
KWIN_DRM_USE_EXPLICIT_SYNC=1
I created /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-power.conf as follows, no change to my symptoms.
options nvidia NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1 NVreg_DynamicPowerManagement=0x00
I’m still on 580.95.05 at this time, but I’ve removed the text from /etc/environment and /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-power.conf.
