Stutters every 5s (because of Freon extention)

[skiski (R. Janvier)]

Hi,

I’ve installed fedora 42 a few days ago, and I started with the default Gnome/Wayland Session. But I was noticing lots of stuttering. Every 5s, it’s like the computer is dropping a few frames. I switched to X11, and the stutters are less noticeable but they are still there.

My system is fully up-to-date. I’ve got an Nvidia card (3070 Ti) and the latest proprietary drivers (575.64.05-2). My CPU is a RYZEN 5 3600 and I’ve got 32 Gio of RAM.

I think I more or less always had this kind of stutters but under Wayland they became very noticeable. Under X11, it’s manageable, but now that I’m noticed that it’s not random I wonder what is causing this. It happens even when I’ve closed almost anything. It starts from the moment i’m logged in. It’s not getting worse with time, it’s just there.

I’ve made screenshots of vkcube with mangohud. Since the stats use less than 5s of history, we can compare with and without the stutter. With X11, the difference is very small:

With X11, between two stutters:

With X11, just after a stutter (we can see it on the graph just under the ‘a’ of ‘max’):

With Wayland between two stutters:

With Wayland, just after a stutter:

The stutter can be seen under ‘min’. It is way more noticeable than with X11.

After the update, I was using Fedora 40 (I only update once a year) and I don’t remember if I was under Wayland or X11. It was probably X11 even though I thought it was Wayland. I still have my old / partition. Is it possible to check the files to see if I was using one or the other?

I’ve also noticed that if I produce an event on vkcube (a click, focus in or out) on X11, I can see it on the graph:

If I’m using Vulkan, It doesn’t do anything on the graph. So it’s like Wayland is more reactive than X11. But there are the stutters…

I don’t hear anything special during the stutters, like a drive access or something like that. My root partition is on a SSD and my /home on a HDD.

I’ve got 2 Asus monitors. They are the same model (I don’t remember the exact model), Full HD and 60Hz. I’ve tried unpluging one and it doesn’t change anything.

I play games on Steam without any problems, even ones with ray tracing, except for these minors stutters that I got used to. So it’s not a performance problem from my system. At least not from my GPU I think.

If you have some idea on what I can do, or at least how I can try to investigate this, it would be nice.

Thanks.

[anotheruser (Mark)]

Do you see the same stutter in other applications or games?
Does vkcube stutter in a Wayland session when started as

vkcube --wsi wayland  --present_mode 1

maybe update the driver to the latest stable 580.* stable version. 575.* was the short lived new feature branch.

$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version 
NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX Open Kernel Module for x86_64  580.76.05  Release Build  (dvs-builder@U22-I3-AF03-18-1)  Thu Aug  7 20:13:15 UTC 2025

------  f42-nonfree-updates-testing 
Build                                     Tag                   Built by
----------------------------------------  --------------------  ----------------
nvidia-kmod-580.76.05-2.fc42              f42-nonfree-updates-testing  leigh123linux
nvidia-modprobe-580.76.05-1.fc42          f42-nonfree-updates-testing  leigh123linux
nvidia-open-kmod-580.76.05-1.fc42         f42-nonfree-updates-testing  leigh123linux
nvidia-persistenced-580.76.05-1.fc42      f42-nonfree-updates-testing  leigh123linux
nvidia-settings-580.76.05-1.fc42          f42-nonfree-updates-testing  leigh123linux
nvidia-xconfig-580.76.05-1.fc42           f42-nonfree-updates-testing  leigh123linux
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-580.76.05-1.fc42      f42-nonfree-updates-testing  leigh123linux

[skiski (R. Janvier)]

Thanks for the reply. The stutters can be seen on the whole system: watching a movie, playing a game, moving a window. Even when moving the mouse, even though in X11 it is barely noticeable. It’s because I’ve noticed it by just moving the mouse in Wayland that I switched back to x11.

I use vkcube to measure it, but it is not the cause of it. And I’m not sure it is because of the drivers since I’m pretty sure it happened on fedora 40, and maybe before. It’s probably something else, like a program checking something every 5 seconds. And it is not specific to Wayland. It is just more noticeable in Wayland.

I’ll try the new drivers if I don’t find another solution.

[anotheruser (Mark)]

Sorry, I just quickly skimmed through the first post and overlooked this point. In this case it might be helpful to post the output of inxi -Fzxx as preformatted text.

[skiski (R. Janvier)]

I got this:

System:
  Kernel: 6.15.9-201.fc42.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.1.1
  Desktop: GNOME v: 48.4 tk: GTK v: 3.24.49 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM
    Distro: Fedora Linux 42 (Workstation Edition)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Micro-Star product: MS-7B86 v: 3.0
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Micro-Star model: B450 GAMING PLUS MAX (MS-7B86) v: 3.0
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: H.50
    date: 11/07/2019
Battery:
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech MX Master 3S serial: <filter>
    charge: 80% status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 2
    rev: 0 cache: L1: 384 KiB L2: 3 MiB L3: 32 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2134 min/max: 2200/4208 boost: enabled cores: 1: 2134
    2: 2134 3: 2134 4: 2134 5: 2134 6: 2134 7: 2134 8: 2134 9: 2134 10: 2134
    11: 2134 12: 2134 bogomips: 86401
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GA104 [GeForce RTX 3070 Ti] vendor: ZOTAC driver: nvidia
    v: 575.64.05 arch: Ampere pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
    active: none off: DP-1,HDMI-A-1 empty: DP-2,DP-3 bus-ID: 26:00.0
    chip-ID: 10de:2482
  Device-2: Logitech Webcam C270 driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 3-2:3 chip-ID: 046d:0825
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.18 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.8
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: X: loaded: nvidia unloaded: modesetting
    alternate: fbdev,nouveau,nv,vesa gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch
    display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3840x1080 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: DP-1 mapped: DP-0 note: disabled pos: left model: Asus VE248
    res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 92 diag: 609mm (24")
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-0 note: disabled pos: primary,right
    model: Asus VE248 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 92 diag: 609mm (24")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 vendor: nvidia v: 575.64.05 glx-v: 1.4
    direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.313 surfaces: N/A device: 0 type: discrete-gpu
    driver: nvidia device-ID: 10de:2482 device: 1 type: cpu
    driver: mesa llvmpipe device-ID: 10005:0000
  API: EGL Message: EGL data requires eglinfo. Check --recommends.
  Info: Tools: api: glxinfo,vulkaninfo gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi
    x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GA104 High Definition Audio vendor: ZOTAC
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 26:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:228b
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio
    vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 16 GT/s
    lanes: 16 bus-ID: 28:00.4 chip-ID: 1022:1487
  Device-3: SteelSeries ApS Arctis Nova Pro Wireless
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s
    lanes: 1 bus-ID: 3-1:2 chip-ID: 1038:12e0
  Device-4: Logitech Webcam C270 driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 3-2:3 chip-ID: 046d:0825
  API: ALSA v: k6.15.9-201.fc42.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.7 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: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 bus-ID: 21:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:2723
  IF: wlo1 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: f000 bus-ID: 22:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
  IF: enp34s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX200 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0
    speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-10:3 chip-ID: 8087:0029
  Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 5.2
    lmp-v: 11
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 5 TiB used: 4.49 TiB (89.7%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD2002FAEX-007BA0
    size: 1.82 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Toshiba model: HDWD130 size: 2.73 TiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
  ID-3: /dev/sdc vendor: Western Digital model: WDS500G2B0A-00SM50
    size: 465.76 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 48.91 GiB used: 19.41 GiB (39.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdc4
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 499.7 MiB used: 21.4 MiB (4.3%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sdc3
  ID-3: /home size: 2.69 TiB used: 2.5 TiB (93.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100
    dev: /dev/zram0
  ID-2: swap-2 type: partition size: 19.53 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
    priority: -2 dev: /dev/sdc2
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 65.5 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 55 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 0%
Info:
  Memory: total: 32 GiB available: 31.28 GiB used: 8.68 GiB (27.7%)
  Processes: 473 Power: uptime: 7h 47m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 257
    target: graphical (5) default: graphical
  Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm pm: flatpak pkgs: 14
    Compilers: gcc: 15.2.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.37 running-in: ptyxis-agent
    inxi: 3.3.38

I looked into the journal and I noticed these warnings that occurs every 10 seconds:

août 20 15:58:49 fedora python3[188057]: /home/fedoski/.config/systemd/user/NSLGameScanner.py:681: DeprecationWarning: datetime.datetime.utcnow() is deprecated and scheduled for removal in a future version. Use timezone-aware objects to represent datetimes in UTC: datetime.datetime.now(datetime.UTC).
août 20 15:58:49 fedora python3[188057]: App ID for the custom shortcut: 4206469918/home/fedoski/.config/systemd/user/NSLGameScanner.py:726: DeprecationWarning: datetime.datetime.utcnow() is deprecated and scheduled for removal in a future version. Use timezone-aware objects to represent datetimes in UTC: datetime.datetime.now(datetime.UTC).

It’s probably not the cause, but is it possible to solve it?

I will also try to create a new user just to check if it is something because of my conf files or if it is something in my system.

[skiski (R. Janvier)]

Ok, I’ve tried a new user and under Wayland it was perfectly smooth. No more stutters. So it is something in my home, in a config file or something like that.

I’ll try to disable as much thing as possible, just to be sure that it is not a shell extension and then I’ll dig deeper. Any idea about where I could start?

Edit:
I think I found it. It was the Freon extension that checks the temperature of my CPU and GPU that was causing the problem. I’ve disable it and the stutters seem to be gone.

It seems to be a known problem and it may be related to “bad” sensors. I’ll try to find which one because it can be skipped.

I’ll wait some time just to be sure and I’ll mark this as solved.

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

I notice that your uefi (bios) firmware is dated 2019.
It may be that there is a newer firmware version available and you might consider upgrading it if possible.

[anotheruser (Mark)]

In case you upgrade to the latest 580 nvidia driver, there is a small issue with this driver with GTK4 apps. App will hang when exiting, e.g. gnome-control-center. Should be hopefully fixed in the next release. As a workaround add GSK_RENDERER=ngl to /etc/environment.

[skiski (R. Janvier)]

I didn’t move to 580 drivers, but thanks for the tip.

And for the uefi firmware, I would rather not touch it if I don’t have to. But thanks for the info, I think that now it is supposed to be quite easy and, more importantly, safe.

[Espionage724]

@skiski

Edit:
I think I found it. It was the Freon extension that checks the temperature of my CPU and GPU that was causing the problem. I’ve disable it and the stutters seem to be gone.

It seems to be a known problem and it may be related to “bad” sensors. I’ll try to find which one because it can be skipped.

I’ve heard of hardware sensor polling causing that (stuff like Hwinfo/Hwmonitor and AMD/NVIDIA voltage sensors).

Any time the app polls it’s a resource-hit, and stuff like userspace apps → driver-specific lib → hardware also goes through interrupts and how it’s connected on the motherboard (through chipset, IOMMU). I wouldn’t consider having a GNOME bar extension doing something like that (I check sensors manually but otherwise assume my heatsink and thermal paste is fine if fans aren’t 100%).

[anotheruser (Mark)]

I have freon configured and enabled on my system and have not observed any negative side effects. Of course, you must first configure it correctly, i.e. enable only the sensors available in the system.

[skiski (R. Janvier)]

I’ll try to find the “good” sensors. I only want temperature for CPU and GPU.

Anyway, the problem is solved. Thanks a lot.

[tzonys (Ioannis Tzon Tsolakidis)]

Indeed, Freon was bad at stutters. But there are still some randomly timed stutters, but they do seem round. For example, every 30s, or 60s, or even 120s, there’s a stutter that increases frametimes to double. Even if you enable the “Extensions” slider and have NO extensions enabled, the stutters are there. Only by completely disabling extensions the stutters stop.

[skiski (R. Janvier)]

That’s what I did. I did not find how to configure the sensors, so in the end, I disabled freon and I never had any problem after that. I don’t really need it. I installed it at some time when I thought that my CPU were overheating, but it was in fact another problem that I solved.