Intermitent artifacts on the SDDM and Grub screen

it looks something like this(not my picture)
ss

i don’t mind it much since i don’t stay on the log in screen.
(everything is fine on the Desktop)

inxi
  Kernel: 6.12.48-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.2.1
    clocksource: tsc avail: acpi_pm
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.12-x86_64
    root=UUID=2c155c12-a203-4f76-83f3-c5a47e892804 rw
    resume=UUID=906e149c-5c8b-4b11-91fd-041805a54c5a udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.3.6 tk: Qt v: N/A info: frameworks v: 6.18.0
    wm: kwin_x11 vt: 2 dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: N/A v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: TUF GAMING Z790-PLUS WIFI D4 v: Rev 1.xx
    serial: <superuser required> part-nu: SKU uuid: <superuser required>
    UEFI: American Megatrends v: 1805 date: 10/30/2024
CPU:
  Info: model: 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700K bits: 64 type: MST AMCP
    arch: Raptor Lake gen: core 13 level: v3 note: check built: 2022+
    process: Intel 7 (10nm) family: 6 model-id: 0xB7 (183) stepping: 1
    microcode: 0x12F
  Topology: cpus: 1x dies: 1 clusters: 10 cores: 16 threads: 24 mt: 8 tpc: 2
    st: 8 smt: enabled cache: L1: 1.4 MiB desc: d-8x32 KiB, 8x48 KiB; i-8x32
    KiB, 8x64 KiB L2: 24 MiB desc: 8x2 MiB, 2x4 MiB L3: 30 MiB desc: 1x30 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 800 min/max: 800/5300:5400:4200 scaling:
    driver: intel_pstate governor: performance cores: 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800
    4: 800 5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 9: 800 10: 800 11: 800 12: 800 13: 800
    14: 800 15: 800 16: 800 17: 800 18: 800 19: 800 20: 800 21: 800 22: 800
    23: 800 24: 800 bogomips: 164088
  Flags-basic: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: indirect_target_selection status: Not affected
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling mitigation: Clear Register File
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via
    prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
    sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Enhanced / Automatic IBRS; IBPB:
    conditional; PBRSB-eIBRS: SW sequence; BHI: BHI_DIS_S
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsa status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
  Type: vmscape mitigation: IBPB before exit to userspace
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GA104 [GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GDDR6X] vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: nvidia v: 580.82.09 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm
    non-free: 550-580.xx+ status: current (as of 2025-08; EOL~2026-12-xx)
    arch: Ampere code: GAxxx process: TSMC n7 (7nm) built: 2020-2023 pcie:
    gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: none off: DP-2 empty: DP-1,
    DP-3, HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:24c9 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.18 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.8
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: nvidia gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch
    display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2560x1440 s-dpi: 108 s-size: 602x342mm (23.70x13.46")
    s-diag: 692mm (27.26")
  Monitor-1: DP-2 note: disabled model: VG27AQML1A serial: <filter>
    built: 2023 res: N/A dpi: 109 gamma: 1.2 size: 1x1mm (0.04x0.04")
    diag: 685mm (27") ratio: 16:9 modes: max: 2560x1440 min: 640x480
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: nvidia platforms: device: 0 drv: nvidia device: 2
    drv: swrast gbm: drv: nvidia surfaceless: drv: nvidia x11: drv: nvidia
    inactive: wayland,device-1
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 580.82.09
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
    memory: 7.81 GiB
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.321 layers: 6 device: 0 type: discrete-gpu name: NVIDIA
    GeForce RTX 3060 Ti driver: nvidia v: 580.82.09 device-ID: 10de:24c9
    surfaces: N/A
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi
    wl: wayland-info x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_avs,snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl
    bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:7a50 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: NVIDIA GA104 High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:228b class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.12.48-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off tools: N/A
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.4.8 status: off with: pipewire-media-session
    status: active tools: pw-cli
  Server-3: PulseAudio v: 17.0-43-g3e2bb status: active
    with: pulseaudio-alsa type: plugin tools: pacat,pactl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake-S PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:7a70 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp0s20f3 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel Ethernet I226-V vendor: ASUSTeK driver: igc v: kernel
    pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: N/A bus-ID: 07:00.0
    chip-ID: 8086:125c class-ID: 0200
  IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Info: services: NetworkManager,systemd-timesyncd
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX201 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0
    speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 1.1 bus-ID: 1-14:5 chip-ID: 8087:0026
    class-ID: e001
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: see --recommends
RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller Intel
    driver: vmd v: 0.6 port: N/A bus-ID: 00:0e.0 chip-ID: 8086:a77f rev:
    class-ID: 0104
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.82 TiB used: 79.38 GiB (4.3%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:5 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 990 PRO 1TB
    size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 63.2 Gb/s
    lanes: 4 tech: SSD serial: <filter> fw-rev: 1B2QJXD7 temp: 43.9 C
    scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/nvme1n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 990 PRO 1TB
    size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 63.2 Gb/s
    lanes: 4 tech: SSD serial: <filter> fw-rev: 4B2QJXD7 temp: 42.9 C
    scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 922.42 GiB size: 906.86 GiB (98.31%)
    used: 79.38 GiB (8.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:7
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%)
    used: 324 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:6
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default) zswap: no
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 maj-min: 259:8
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 37.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 46 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 0%
Repos:
  Packages: pm: pacman pkgs: 1427 libs: 395 tools: pamac pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
  Active pacman repo servers in: /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
    1: https://mirrors2.manjaro.org/stable/$repo/$arch
    2: https://mirrors.manjaro.org/repo/stable/$repo/$arch
Info:
  Memory: total: 32 GiB note: est. available: 31.06 GiB used: 3 GiB (9.7%)
  Processes: 413 Power: uptime: 21m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep
    avail: s2idle wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform avail: shutdown, reboot,
    suspend, test_resume image: 12.4 GiB services: org_kde_powerdevil,upowerd
    Init: systemd v: 257 default: graphical tool: systemctl
  Compilers: clang: 20.1.8 gcc: 15.2.1 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9 default: Bash
    v: 5.3.3 running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.39

Edit

it’s also on the Grub scren

2cents:

I’ve seen this a few times, the cause was always hardware related, eg something broke. Some parts of the software stack are able to ‘fix’ this somehow. eg, during boot it look like the picture, when the full graphics stack is loaded it seems fixed. Does your journal report something about the screen/card?

1 Like

Hey

here are the journal errors:

Could not initialise PPT tunable control 0
 
kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.PEG1.PEGP._DSM.USRG], AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (20240827/dsfield-184)
kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, CreateBufferField failure (20240827/dswload2-477)
kernel: ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.PC00.PEG1.PEGP._DSM due to previous error (AE_ALREADY_EXISTS) (20240827/psparse-529)
kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.PEG1.PEGP._DSM.USRG], AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (20240827/dsfield-184)
kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, CreateBufferField failure (20240827/dswload2-477)
kernel: ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.PC00.PEG1.PEGP._DSM due to previous error (AE_ALREADY_EXISTS) (20240827/psparse-529)
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:39:34: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:40:29: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:41:29: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:42:29: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:43:29: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:44:27: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:45:27: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:46:27: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:47:27: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:48:29: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: [XKB-542] /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:49:29: string literal is not a valid UTF-8 string
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:49:29: too many errors
kwin_x11[1116]: kwin_xkbcommon: XKB: /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose:49:29: failed to parse file
bluetoothd[866]: src/profile.c:ext_io_disconnected() Unable to get io data for Hands-Free Voice gateway: getpe

these are the usual errors i get.

also i got no issue on the Windows log-in screen on my second drive.

Abandoned topic (30+ days)