Screen tearing, gnome freezing and restarting to login

Screen tearing and gdm freeze to logout

On a daily basis I have been getting screen tearing or gnome freezing and restarting back to the login prompt. My knowledge on troubleshooting such an issue is limited. I have been using Fedora for about 6 weeks now on my home and office PC’s. Office PC has been rock solid. I am only having problems on this PC at home. I am only assuming it has to do the with the NVIDIA video card, but am unsure. Any help you are willing to give I would be very grateful. It has been a frustrating experience. Please let me know what other information I can provide that would be useful in getting this resolved once and for all. Thank you!!

Fedora Workstation 37

Video card that I am using: NVIDIA Corporation TU117 [GeForce GTX 1650] (rev a1)

PC Model: Dell XPS 8930

dnf repolist

repo id repo name
fedora Fedora 37 - x86_64
fedora-cisco-openh264 Fedora 37 openh264 (From Cisco) - x86_64
fedora-modular Fedora Modular 37 - x86_64
phracek-PyCharm Copr repo for PyCharm owned by phracek
protonvpn-fedora-stable ProtonVPN Fedora Stable repository
rpmfusion-free RPM Fusion for Fedora 37 - Free
rpmfusion-free-tainted RPM Fusion for Fedora 37 - Free tainted
rpmfusion-free-updates RPM Fusion for Fedora 37 - Free - Updates
rpmfusion-nonfree RPM Fusion for Fedora 37 - Nonfree
rpmfusion-nonfree-NVIDIA-driver RPM Fusion for Fedora 37 - Nonfree - NVIDIA Driver
rpmfusion-nonfree-steam RPM Fusion for Fedora 37 - Nonfree - Steam
rpmfusion-nonfree-tainted RPM Fusion for Fedora 37 - Nonfree tainted
rpmfusion-nonfree-updates RPM Fusion for Fedora 37 - Nonfree - Updates
updates Fedora 37 - x86_64 - Updates
updates-modular Fedora Modular 37 - x86_64 - Updates

What I have done:

  • updated system and installed NVIDIA driver using
    sudo dnf install akmod-NVIDIA

  • It installed with no errors.

  • rebooted

  • When logging in, I get an message that states kernel failure, reverting to nouveau kernel and then it logs in

  • I had been using Wayland. Noticed when I logged in using X11…after another reboot…, I did not get that message, but I guess that is because it already had reverted the kernal.

  • I also noticed that I now have a service failure: NVIDIA powered - failed to start

  • I removed the nvidia driver:

sudo dnf remove akmod-NVIDIA

After doing that and rebooting, I am still getting the kernel failure, reverting to nouveau kernel message.

Output on inxi -Fzxx:

  Kernel: 6.1.5-200.fc37.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 2.38-25.fc37 Desktop: GNOME v: 43.2 tk: GTK v: 3.24.36 wm: gnome-shell
    dm: GDM Distro: Fedora release 37 (Thirty Seven)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Dell product: XPS 8930 v: 1.1.26
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 3 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0T2HR0 v: A00 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Dell
    v: 1.1.26 date: 09/23/2022
Battery:
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Marathon Mouse/Performance Plus
    M705 serial: <filter> charge: 100% (should be ignored) status: discharging
  Device-2: hidpp_battery_1 model: Logitech MX Keys Wireless Keyboard
    serial: <filter> charge: 50% (should be ignored) status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: 8-core model: Intel Core i7-9700 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Coffee Lake
    rev: D cache: L1: 512 KiB L2: 2 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 4655 high: 4700 min/max: 800/4700 cores: 1: 4700 2: 4604
    3: 4603 4: 4700 5: 4674 6: 4700 7: 4602 8: 4664 bogomips: 48000
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel CoffeeLake-S GT2 [UHD Graphics 630] vendor: Dell
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-9.5 ports: active: none
    empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:3e98
  Device-2: NVIDIA TU117 [GeForce GTX 1650] vendor: Dell driver: nouveau
    v: kernel arch: Turing pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
    active: HDMI-A-3 empty: DVI-D-1 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1f82
    temp: 28.0 C
  Device-3: Logitech C920 HD Pro Webcam type: USB
    driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-11.3:8 chip-ID: 046d:0892
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.20.14 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.7
    compositors: 1: gnome-shell 2: Tabby driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: nouveau,iris gpu: nouveau display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-3 model: Philips PHL 323E7 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 70
    diag: 801mm (31.5")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.3 Mesa 22.3.3 renderer: NV167 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 200 Series PCH HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 1-11.3:8 bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 046d:0892
    chip-ID: 8086:a2f0
  Device-2: NVIDIA vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie:
    speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:10fa
  Device-3: Logitech C920 HD Pro Webcam type: USB
    driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
  Sound API: ALSA v: k6.1.5-200.fc37.x86_64 running: yes
  Sound Server-1: PulseAudio v: 16.1 running: no
  Sound Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.64 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
    vendor: Dell driver: ath10k_pci v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1
    bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 168c:0042
  IF: wlp3s0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2400 Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Dell
    driver: alx v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: d000
    bus-ID: 04:00.0 chip-ID: 1969:e0a1
  IF: enp4s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-8:3
    chip-ID: 0cf3:e009
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: down bt-service: enabled,running
    rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 2.73 TiB used: 846.89 GiB (30.3%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDBNCE0010PNC
    size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
  ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: Seagate model: Portable size: 1.82 TiB
    serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 929.93 GiB used: 188.44 GiB (20.3%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda3
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 277.3 MiB (28.5%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 17.4 MiB (2.9%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-4: /home size: 929.93 GiB used: 188.44 GiB (20.3%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda3
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 8.5 MiB (0.1%) priority: 100
    dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 34.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 28.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1463 mobo: 854
Info:
  Processes: 415 Uptime: 12h 14m Memory: 15.46 GiB used: 6.02 GiB (38.9%)
  Init: systemd v: 251 target: graphical (5) default: graphical Compilers:
  gcc: 12.2.1 Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm pm: flatpak pkgs: 64
  Shell: Bash v: 5.2.15 running-in: tabby inxi: 3.3.24```

The reason it failed to load the nvidia driver after installing it was likely due to having
secure boot enabled and the nvidia modules unsigned. I cannot confirm that since you have removed the driver. It also may have been a misinterpretation of that message but we cannot tell since you did not post the message of concern.

You can leave secure boot enabled and prepare to sign the nvidia driver by following the steps here.
There are only 2 steps required to do so and I quote that link. Use sudo with both those commands.

As per the README.secureboot (located at /usr/share/doc/akmods/README.secureboot) you need the following commands:

# To create the self generated key and certificate:
/usr/sbin/kmodgenca
# To import the key, the command will ask for a password to protect the key
# You will have to enter this password during the special EFI window
mokutil --import /etc/pki/akmods/certs/public_key.der

Once the mokutil command has been run simply reboot as stated in the referenced README file and complete the import of the key into the bios.

After importing that key you will be able to reinstall the nvidia drivers sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda and the modules will be signed as they are compiled following the install.

Wait about 5 minutes for the driver to be compiled, then another boot should load the nvidia driver for the nvidia card.

To verify the driver is properly loaded and operational run lsmod | grep nvidia which should give a 4 or 5 line return.

If the lsmod command does not give a response then post back here and we can provide additional guidance on how to fix it.

Ahh, I did not know this. Thank for your advice and willingness to help. I will give this a try when I get home this evening.

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This seems to have taken care of the issue. Thanks again!!

1 Like