Power mode "Balanced"or "Power Saver"causes the screen to flicker and go black

Ask Fedora
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Fedora Linux 41 (Workstation Edition)
Lenovo ThinkPad E15 Gen 3, AMD Ryzen™ 3 5300U with Radeon™ Graphics × 8
This started couple of days ago. No problems earlier and no problem with power mode “Performance”
I have been updating the system many times per week.
I have no tools for testing the hardware, but screen flicker and eventually goes to blank only in those power saving modes. Perhaps something to agressive power saving settings came with latests system update?

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Same here. I noticed it today as I generally have my Lenovo laptop plugged to the external monitor. Unplugged it today and noticed this happening. Any can one shed some light into this?

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You are right. I ended up switching to the previous version of the kernel (as default) until a fix has been released. Thanks for guiding me to the correct article.

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Thanks! It is good to know hw is not broken. I simply set up “performance” mode also for unplugged. (I have plug allways available, if running out of battery)

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Thank God I found this discussion, I was about to post this as a new thread. I did some testing and, at least on my case:

  • kernel 6.12.6-200 does NOT fix the problem
  • plugging back AC power “fixes” the problem (display resumes)
  • You don’t have to stick to “performance” mode, all you need is to set tuned to “manual” mode

Regarding tuned, the weird thing is that even on manual mode, performance profiles still switch automatically between powersave/balanced profiles if you (un)plug AC power, as can be seen by running tuned-adm active. And, to make matters worse, GNOME’s control panel doesn’t reflect this (it keeps showing “Balanced” even when tuned-adm active shows “powersave” :thinking:

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I just attempted to set the power mode to balanced whilst plugged in and then pull the power cord but I still get the same issue. I checked tuned and it says I’m in manual, the only thing which seems to keep the screen on is being set to performance mode or having the power cable plugged in.

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Cross-posting from the other thread: this should be fixed in kernel 6.12.9 :raised_hands: (we’re still on 6.12.7, but it’s good to know a fix is coming)

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