GPU problems (freezing/looping?) with 6900 XT on Fedora 35

Ask Fedora
1

I’m having an issue that is affecting me whether I use 5.17 or 5.16 at boot up. The issue started today. It affects me in both my Fedora 35 boot and also my Windows 11 boot, but in different ways.

In Fedora 35, some time after the OS has been running, maybe 30 mins-60 mins, the screen flashes black on both of my monitors and comes back, except the mouse doesn’t do anything. I can move it, but sometimes the cursor disappears, selecting text doesn’t select it, and clicking GUI buttons doesn’t have an effect. The pixels displayed on the screen bounce back and forth between now and what they would show 1 second ago. For example, I’m on Slack and typing a message and it shows my cursor flashing, or shows 3:21 → 3:22 → 3:21 in Spotify. This appears to be only visual though, with my computer still functioning, because I was able to complete my Slack message and hit enter, and then check my phone’s Slack app to see that the message went through, even though my monitor was still showing the incomplete message with the flashing cursor.

I noticed that this didn’t start happening until I tried to play a new game for the first time on my Windows 11 boot (Valorant) and it crashed after a few minutes there with a “GPU driver crashed” message.

On Windows, I get similar symptoms. The screen flashes black on both monitors and I lose control of the cursor, even though it moves around, except that it happens almost immediately after boot up and I also see blue and yellow small square artifacts on one of the screens. I’m just mentioning this for reference right now. My main concern is getting my Fedora boot working correctly.

In Fedora, I’m not sure of any troubleshooting steps I can take right now because I was under the impression that for AMD GPU drivers, you’re supposed to just keep your system packages up to date, and your system is supposed to use the latest version of the GPU driver from the kernel.

I recorded videos showing the symptoms when the problem happens: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Here’s a video where I reproduced the problem again tonight, showing the Spotify bouncing back and forth thing: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Is this a hardware problem, or are there software troubleshooting steps I can take, like checking logs or switching to different installed software?

2

If it is a Laptop, it looks like as the first signs of Keyboard problems. On a desktop you just could test with an other Keyboard or Mouse. If you have wireless keyboard and mouse would be a good moment to change batteries.