Stuttering throughout Gnome DE (F36); Input lag, cursor freezes, animations not smooth

I just installed Fedora 36 and I’ve been experiencing periodic stutters. This happens when moving to another workspace or a desktop animation occurs. The motion is not smooth, stutters, and occasionally freezes for a fraction of a second. This happens every second or so. When I’m typing, the cursor and my inputs seem to lag behind as well.

In Firefox scrolling also stutters and there is input lag. What’s odd is that fedora was working fine after 2 reboots then after that, the stutters and input lag return (I’ve reinstalled several times). I’ve also tried Ubuntu & Arch and the same happens.
Also to note, I’m using an external 4K monitor via usb-c. The issue persists even on the laptop’s built-in display.

Hardware/Software & Kernel:

  • Laptop with Intel 11th gen Iris Xe graphics (i7 - 1165 G7)
  • Kernel: 5.18.17
  • I’m using Wayland (xorg has the same issue)

What I’ve tried:

  • Installed the latest updates for fedora
  • Also Updated BIOS on laptop
  • I’ve checked to make sure I am using the latest intel drivers and that they are loaded

It seems that cpu usage is relatively high even though I’m just moving windows around.
Is it possible that the CPU is being used to render rather than the GPU, despite having the drivers installed/loaded?

What is strange is that after a fresh install everything is running smooth, no stutters/freezing or input lag. Only after a few reboots does the problem show up. Does anyone have an Idea of what could be the cause?

Output from glxinfo -B:

name of display: :0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
    Device: Mesa Intel(R) Xe Graphics (TGL GT2) (0x9a49)
    Version: 22.1.6
    Accelerated: yes
    Video memory: 31883MB
    Unified memory: yes
    Preferred profile: core (0x1)
    Max core profile version: 4.6
    Max compat profile version: 4.6
    Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
    Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2
OpenGL vendor string: Intel
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa Intel(R) Xe Graphics (TGL GT2)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 22.1.6
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile

OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 22.1.6
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 22.1.6
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20

Welcome to ask :fedora:

Is your laptop equipped with the dual GPU config?
Please post the output of inxi -Fzx

If it has an nvidia GPU and you have not installed the nvidia driver then the GPU will be dependent upon software rendering which can result in cpu overload and stuttering in display as you have described. The inxi output will tell us.

Unfortunately, I’ve decided to install PopOS just to see if that somehow resolves the problem. For now everything seems to be working. All animations are pretty smooth, no stutters or input lag. But I’m still a bit skeptical, I’m still using GNOME in PopOS so problems may resurface. Somehow I get the feeling that Iris Xe is unreliable on Linux…

Also thank you! and thanks for the reply @computersavvy! my laptop only has an integrated gpu, so no Nvidia graphics.

I’ll continue to post updates if anyone wants to know if this issue was resolved on Fedora, but because this is my main laptop I usually cannot spend a lot of time experimenting.

Glad to hear that you seem happy with PopOS, though how you can determine that in less than 20 hours is hard to understand.

You initially posted this thread 21 hours ago after a new install of fedora, I responded 13 hours ago, and now you have already removed fedora and installed PopOS. It seems you are really impatient and do not even allow time for a response to your original question before distro-hopping.

Good luck in the future.

There is more to it than that. I have installed Fedora in the past and used extensively (I prefer it to Pop), distributions are great, but the tools/programs are what I need. PopOS seems to be behaving differently and so I am tentatively counting this as progress. But I don’t consider this a full solution.

Also It is true that I just installed fedora, but it was a re-installation. A re-install seems to fix the problem momentarily. I have been dealing with this problem for many weeks and have stuck with Fedora or Ubuntu. Thanks again for your time.

Thank you for the response. I don’t mean to be overly critical, but without the requested info we have no way to identify any potential causes. Responding with the asked-for info will give us some idea about how to assist. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

I’d generally say this in response to the OP, it could be a missing or wrong video video driver, as @computersavvy already stated above, and in addition to that it might also have been some trouble related to Wayland running on the mesa-driver. So I would have tried logging in to gnome with X11, first thing. Either approach might have been easier, than reverting to Pop-OS (which I also like).

No worries all is good :slight_smile: I have decided to give fedora another chance, the reason is because I really like PopOS but fedora has a standard Gnome desktop with no extra features. And that is what I’m looking for.

Here is the output from inxi -Fzx
(I shortened it a bit)

I also did this before the DE started to show stutters then used diff between what is shown below and that earlier file. They look the same.
This is fedora 36 running on Kernel 5.18.17

Of course the stutters are back at this point. But for a brief moment the system was working smoothly.

System:
  Kernel: 5.18.17-200.fc36.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 2.37-27.fc36 Desktop: GNOME v: 42.4
    Distro: Fedora release 36 (Thirty Six)
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Tiger Lake rev: 1 cache: L1: 320 KiB L2: 5 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 683 high: 1062 min/max: 400/4700 cores: 1: 536 2: 619
    3: 689 4: 771 5: 705 6: 628 7: 1062 8: 458 bogomips: 44851
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel
    arch: Gen12.1 bus-ID: 00:02.0
  Display: wayland server: X.Org v: 1.22.1.3 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.3
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: gpu: i915 resolution: 3840x2160~60Hz
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Xe Graphics (TGL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.1.6
    direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.18.17-200.fc36.x86_64 running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.56 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX210/AX211/AX411 160MHz driver: iwlwifi v: kernel
    bus-ID: aa:00.0
  IF: wlp170s0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter type: USB
    driver: cdc_ncm bus-ID: 2-1.1.2:4
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: half mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX210 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
    bus-ID: 3-10:8
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.14 TiB used: 99.38 GiB (8.5%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Smart Modular Tech. model: SHGP31-1000GM
    size: 931.51 GiB temp: 38.9 C
  ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: Crucial model: ATA CT256MX1
    size: 238.47 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 929.93 GiB used: 7.1 GiB (0.8%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 204.7 MiB (21.0%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 14 MiB (2.3%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
  ID-4: /home size: 929.93 GiB used: 7.1 GiB (0.8%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 300 Uptime: 26m Memory: 31.14 GiB used: 3.23 GiB (10.4%)
  Init: systemd target: graphical (5) Compilers: gcc: 12.1.1 Packages: N/A
  note: see --pkg Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 inxi: 3.3.19

This shows the cpu which should be quite capable as idling.

CPU:
  Info: quad core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Tiger Lake rev: 1 cache: L1: 320 KiB L2: 5 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 683 high: 1062 min/max: 400/4700 cores: 1: 536 2: 619
    3: 689 4: 771 5: 705 6: 628 7: 1062 8: 458 bogomips: 44851

If you were to task the machine then run that again as inxi -CSGzxx it might tell us more about the issue.

At first glance it would seem that for some reason the cpu is limited in speed and running at an idle when it certainly seems that the specs should allow it to perform better.

Specs for that processer here show that the processor seems to be running at approximately half the

Configurable TDP-down Base Frequency
1.20 GHz

and that may imply that something in the bios config is limiting its capabilities.

Have you tried anything in the bios settings to reconfigure the cpu or memory speeds to match the specs or is everything simply default?

I think you’re on the right track. But strangely the stutters are gone, today I used the laptop, and at the outset I saw no stutters. To my knowledge I haven’t changed anything since the last reboot.

Also I put the cpu under load and it was able to increase frequency as is expected, at most it went up to ~4700.

I’m gonna try to reproduce the problem and post the output from inxi as you suggest.

Maybe it was an update that occurred after the earlier attempt and before today.

Hope it all continues well for you.

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If the stutters come back, increasing the amount of memory allocated to the integrated graphics could help.

Thank you all for the help! As it turns out, the stutters have returned randomly. I did a small test to see if cpu speeds change according to load and this is what I found:

Under Load but No stutters:

System:
  Kernel: 5.18.17-200.fc36.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 2.37-27.fc36 Desktop: GNOME v: 42.4
    Distro: Fedora release 36 (Thirty Six)
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Tiger Lake rev: 1 cache: L1: 320 KiB L2: 5 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 3623 high: 3998 min/max: 400/4700 cores: 1: 3759
    2: 3964 3: 3891 4: 3668 5: 3493 6: 2460 7: 3998 8: 3752 bogomips: 44851
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel
    arch: Gen12.1 bus-ID: 00:02.0
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Xe Graphics (TGL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.1.6
    direct render: Yes

Under load With stutters:

System:
  Kernel: 5.18.18-200.fc36.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 2.37-27.fc36 Desktop: GNOME v: 42.4 tk: GTK v: 3.24.34 wm: gnome-shell
    dm: GDM Distro: Fedora release 36 (Thirty Six)
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Tiger Lake rev: 1 cache: L1: 320 KiB L2: 5 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2051 high: 2814 min/max: 400/4700 cores: 1: 2564
    2: 1936 3: 608 4: 2654 5: 2814 6: 2810 7: 1601 8: 1422 bogomips: 44851
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel
    arch: Gen12.1 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, DP-4
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:9a49
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.20.14 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.3
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: gpu: i915 display-ID: 0
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Xe Graphics (TGL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.1.7
    direct render: Yes

So it seems the cpu is not ramping up to meet the demand and it could be a bottleneck? The BIOS is stock beyond changing: secure boot to off and battery charge limit to 60% But I’ll check again.

Thanks for the suggestion @vwbusguy I do hope it’s not a memory issue, If it is then maybe it’s a hardware problem? The ram in this case?

This is often configurable in the BIOS settings on machines that have integrated graphics. Increasing the memory allocated to your integrated graphics in BIOS might help with this.

@vwbusguy Just looked at the BIOS of this laptop and also looked around the web and it seems this option isn’t exposed for now. I’m on the latest BIOS update so hopefully in the future this option becomes available. Nevertheless thanks for the suggestion

Took some new readings just now with my machine under load:

CPU:
  Info: quad core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Tiger Lake rev: 1 cache: L1: 320 KiB L2: 5 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1012 high: 2821 min/max: 400/4700 cores: 1: 2559
    2: 2821 3: 1721 4: 200 5: 200 6: 200 7: 200 8: 200 bogomips: 44851
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx

It seems that the machine does not want to boost past 2800 Mhz or so, when there is no stutters it boosts well above that, reaching 4700 Mhz. Not sure what could be causing this.

That last looks like the app may not be multi-threaded. It appears that only 3 (of 8) cores are used at that time.

I found the problem. It was a hardware issue. My laptop (framework-laptop) has expansion cards. When looking through forums I found a similar issue, that I too was having. If you’re in the BIOS and have a Display Port expansion card inserted, it freezes periodically. This happens even inside the OS whether that’s Windows or Linux. The solution is to remove the Display Port card. Stutters are gone for good.

I’m sure it can be fixed via a BIOS update. The rest of the laptop works very well. But I must admit I would of never thought that an expansion card would give this kind of trouble.

I’d like to thank you all for the help, I learned a little bit more about troubleshooting!

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