QubesOS
Qubes OS 4.1 is not usable on 11 gen Intel CPU with iGPU due to slow redrawing and high CPU consumption
Qubes OS release
R4.1
Brief summary
Installation and usage of Qubes OS 4.1 is not possible on 11 gen Intel CPU with iGPU because of slow drawing and high CPU consumption (XOrg consumes 100% of one CPU). Screen redraw takes up to 1-2 seconds when internal GPU is used on Intel 11th generation CPUs (maybe 10, 12 too?). Mouse is moving with huge lags and the whole system is unusable.
Steps to reproduce
Run Qubes OS 4.1 installation process from flash disk or run already installed Qubes OS on 11 gen Intel CPU with iGPU connected to display via DP/HDMI/DVI, the symptoms are all the same - redrawing is insanely slow, mouse movement is laggy, CPU is hot.
Expected behavior
Qubes OS 4.1 works as usual.
Actual behavior
Qubes OS 4.1 is unusable. Redrawing is insanely slow, mouse is moving with huge lags.
Work-arounds
Using external GPU (eGPU) and connecting Display to it instead of iGPU solves the problem. But it destroys the whole point of using Intel iGPU that was always a recommended GPU for Qubes OS since forever. Also redundant eGPU costs money, occupies 1-2 additional PCIe slots and provides additional noise with irreplaceable noisy coolers.
Related issues
Possible this ones are related: #6356, #4943. But I have issues always, not after terminal switches or something. Just always and the system is unusable 100% of the time. Similar problems are in #5244 but it's about 4.0 and not sure it's 100% the same, because I have latest and updated R4.1.
Well. After sudo qubes-dom0-update kernel-latest I can't boot at all with eGPU installed (even not connected to display, nor selected in BIOS as default one).
I have Kernel panic after selecting default boot option in grub, the screen has a lot of text, like 2-3 screens and at the end:
Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception
Kernel Offset: disabled
And PC reboots automatically in a couple of seconds.
But when I removed eGPU, I got working Qubes OS with not problems mentioned in the report. So, huge thanks for advice. it kind of works!
On the other hand I still need eGPU, because I'm hoping to passthough it and not sure how to do so when Qubes OS does not boot like that.
Well. After
sudo qubes-dom0-update kernel-latestI can't boot at all with eGPU installed (even not connected to display, nor selected in BIOS as default one). I have Kernel panic after selecting default boot option in grub, the screen has a lot of text, like 2-3 screens and at the end:Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception Kernel Offset: disabled
Can you get a backtrace from pstore on the next successful boot?
But when I removed eGPU, I got working Qubes OS with not problems mentioned in the report. So, huge thanks for advice. it kind of works!
You’re welcome!
On the other hand I still need eGPU, because I'm hoping to passthough it and not sure how to do so when Qubes OS does not boot like that.
My intuition is that this is a “PCIe hotplug needs to be enabled in dom0” issue, which needs more testing to make sure Xen and dom0 handle this properly.
For any hardware problems, try sudo qubes-dom0-update from time to time. Problem may one day get solved when linux-firmware or some similar packages get updated.
After installing kernel-latest it seem to be solved however it isn't.
- From time to time cursor is not being cleared properly. Such artifacts remains and are being cleared randomly.
- I am not able to change primary built-in screen resolution. If I change it screen will be automatically switched off. However the list is full of possible resolution to choose from.
- I can confirm that there is no problem with the external screen attached to builtin HDMI port it works with no issue. my CPU is i7-11370H
I can also confirm cursor slowness/refresh problems in like 1/4 part of the upper screen area. Lower part of the screen doesn't seem to affected. I use laptop with built in screen for testing. Screen resolution is pretty high 2880x1800.
One observation I use TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 - Gen6 which according to this list https://www.qubes-os.org/hcl/#tuxedo_infinitybook-pro-14-gen6_i7-11370h_tiger-lake_integrated-graphics-iris-xe
should work with kernel 5.15.14-1 at least with basic setup as I understand. Is there an easy option to downgrade it from 5.16.13-2? I have tried to
sudo dnf downgrade kernel-5.15.14-1
No package kernel-5.15.14-1 available Error: no packages marked for downgrade
Ok, solved by downgrading kernel to 5.10.104-3.fc32 and setting i915.enable_psr=0 like in https://forum.qubes-os.org/t/tuxedo-infinitybook-pro-14-gen-6/7822/5 . Upgrading kernel to 5.16.13-2 was a mistake in my case.
- From time to time cursor is not being cleared properly.
Yes, I still have it on a clean up-to-date R4.1.1 installation, it's not fixed. The movement over desktop icons or window borders instantly makes cursor fuzzy and surrounded with random pixels.
The way I partly fixed (UPDATE: I still have minor artifacts) it for myself in similar way - I added i915.enable_psr=0 to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX in /etc/default/grub:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
And updating grub config. Documentation for R4.1 is outdated, so in my case of EFI I did it this way:
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/qubes/grub.cfg
Before that I made a copy of /boot/efi/EFI/qubes/grub.cfg to /boot/efi/EFI/qubes/grub.cfg_orig just in case.
This removed flickering but several problems are still in place with R4.1:
- The password for LVM screen still has artifacts - every password char produces new ones. The progress bar is also disturbed.
- The CPU consumption for mouse movement goes up to 20% of 1CPU, which is ridiculously high, 2 times more than I had on older PC with R4.0 with 2-4 times slower CPU.
- [UPDATE: youtube playback is flawless now] Youtube at 1080p and 2x is unplayable and freezes (in Firefox at least), while mpv plays 1080p videos with much higher bitrate flawlessly.
On the other hand - the described problem with insanely slow redrawing and 100% CPU consumption gone, probably due to kernel version being updated.
I checked the situation with current Qubes OS USB installer with only iGPU (Intel) being used, without eGPU.
The installer uses kernel 5.15.52-1.fc32q.qubes.x86_64.
I saw no major issues with super-slow redrawing that I had before. Therefore I'm closing this issue as solved for me.