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February 22nd, 2023 12:00
Problems after Ubuntu updates on Dell XPS Plus 9320 Developer edition
XPS 13 Plus 9320
On Friday, February 18, 2023, my Dell XPS 13 Plus 9320 Developer Edition (Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS) applied a set of automatic updates, including a a number of Dell specific updates (e.g., oem-somerville-tentacool-meta:amd64, oem-somerville-factory-tentacool-meta:amd64) and a BIOS update to version 2.0.0. Immediately thereafter, I started experiencing significant problems: bands of random colored pixels across the screen when I move the mouse, built-in camera stopped working, etc.).
I have since discovered (through Googling) that the BIOS update was an error on Dell's part. I don't know about the other updates.
The only suggestions from tech support have been to (a) Manually downgrade back to BIOS 1.11.0 (which I was able to do only with help from folks watching the Github issue above), but that didn't seem to fix the issues, and then (b) Reinstall the OS.
In terms of reinstalling the OS, tech support first pointed me to this page to download the Dell recovery image specifically for this machine (which sounded reasonable), but when I typed in my service tag number, it said "Recovery image currently unavailable." Then they sent me to the generic Ubuntu installation site. When I pushed back and said that I thought this machine needed a proprietary Dell image to support all of the hardware, they said they "don't have another method to get the Dell image of Ubuntu", but now suggested I try recovering from hard drive., which again maybe sounds reasonable, but all of this conflicting information (and lack of curiosity about the original Dell updates that presumably caused all of this) is making me very nervous.
Has anybody had any luck finding folks within Dell support that specifically support Ubuntu? Again, I bought this machine with Ubuntu pre-installed and certified.
tcquinn
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February 26th, 2023 05:00
The most complete thread on this problem is over on Ask Ubuntu.
tcquinn
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February 22nd, 2023 14:00
One update: somebody on the Ask Ubuntu Stack Exchange suggested the possibility that this could all be related to the update from the 5.15 kernel to the 5.19 kernel (which, relatedly or coincidentally, happened at almost exactly the same time as the Dell-specific updates mentioned above. Anybody else having issues with that kernel upgrade?
tcquinn
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February 22nd, 2023 16:00
It seems many others are having exactly the same problem with the same timing on the same machine with the same OS:
https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/Horizontal-lines-appearing-on-my-display-Ubuntu/m-p/8353821#M159112
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1455653/horizontal-colored-lines-appearing-on-display-ubuntu-22-04
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1455925/dell-xps-13-plus-9320-horizontal-lines-static-after-installing-latest-release
prdm0
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February 26th, 2023 03:00
I'm having the same problem with my Dell XPS 13 Plus. I noticed the monitor with a slightly yellowish white and when I move the mouse over some elements, horizontal bands of colored pixels appear. My bios version is older than the current version.
prdm0
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February 26th, 2023 04:00
I have already changed the kernel and even versions of Linux. I put Arch Linux, but first I created a recovery USB so I could go back to Ubuntu again. In both Arch and Ubuntu, in different versions of the linux kernel the problem remained.
tcquinn
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February 26th, 2023 05:00
@prdm0 So, I'm not sure. On my machine the problem was definitely introduced by the update from the 5.15 kernel to the 5.19 kernel (pushed to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS users a little over a week ago), but it presumably got introduced in some version between 5.15 and 5.19, possibly a while ago, and that version might have been pushed to different distros at different times. I would try specifically downgrading to 5.15 to see if that helps and/or add the i915.enable_psr=0 flag to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT string in your /etc/default/grub file. All details are here. If those don't have any impact, you might be facing a different problem.
prdm0
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February 26th, 2023 05:00
I was able to fix the issue of the colored horizontal pixels. I just think the monitor could deliver more. I noticed it a little dark and with very slightly yellowish white tones.
For me, the image below is slightly yellowish. The background white should be better.
prdm0
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February 26th, 2023 06:00
It also appears to me that the monitor is not properly calibrated for colors and brightness. For example, the white in the image below is not in the proper white light.
Maybe with some color calibration software it will work.
prdm0
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February 26th, 2023 12:00
@tcquinn , Dell informed in the ticket what would be the disadvantage of making i915.enable_psr=0 flag to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT? I suppose that if they opened a case with Canonical to solve the problem, then there is some loss in using this solution, for example, not using all the quality that could be delivered by the screen.
tcquinn
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February 26th, 2023 14:00
@prdm0 I don't know. I think the feature that is being disabled is PSR2 selective fetch. If you Google that phrase, you'll find all kinds of threads about problems relating to this feature. Most of the solutions seem to involve disabling it (as Dell suggested).
prdm0
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February 27th, 2023 18:00
Just for the record, on Pop OS, just do:
sudo echo "options i915 enable_psr=0" >> /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
sudo update-initramfs -c -k $(uname -r)
reboot
I'm using Pop OS.
I had tried switching back to Arch and Manjaro, but it's still not legal to use Dell XPS 9320 on Arch or Arch-based systems.