Persistent screen refresh(?) issue

Hey everyone, so I have a bit of a persistent issue. I want to use Linux on my HP Spectre folio 13-ak0802, but it has a big issue.

The screen only seems to refresh around the cursor, and when I use the touchpad and lift my finger to adjust it leaves cursors I have to manually “move to” to refresh that area and remove them.

  • Its an issue on other distros as well.

  • The issue begins even on boot, at the login screen where I have to “clear” the screen with my cursor to remove the splash screen. It seems to clear the screen in horizontal lines spanning the display.

  • Same issue on gnome, kde, budgie and cinnamon so it doesnt seem to be DE related. Neither does it seem to wayland or xorg, as Ive tried both.

  • I know it works just fine when I use any 4.x kernel, the problem is only with 5.x kernel but Id obviously like to use that.

  • Its only on the native laptop screen, when I dock it to an external monitor it works just fine.

  • Only intel integrated graphics

  • It does have a touchscreen which may be relevant?

Example gif of the issue: imgur com/99V9lK6

**System**:
  Kernel: 5.12.9-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.12-x86_64 
  root=UUID=f9ecb6a8-c8bf-4f64-ba87-3debc989b67e rw quiet splash apparmor=1 
  security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3 intel_idle.max_cstate=1 
  Desktop: GNOME 3.38.4 tk: GTK 3.24.29 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM 40.0 
  Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP Spectre Folio Convertible 13-ak0xxx 
  v: Type1ProductConfigId serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 31 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: HP model: 8503 v: 14.54 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: F.40 
  date: 12/01/2020 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 47.2 Wh (92.0%) condition: 51.3/54.3 Wh (94.5%) 
  volts: 8.3 min: 7.7 model: COMPAL PABAS0241231 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> 
  status: Discharging 
  Device-1: hid-0018:04F3:284A.0001-battery model: ELAN2514:00 04F3:284A 
  serial: N/A charge: N/A status: N/A 
Memory:
  RAM: total: 7.66 GiB used: 1.82 GiB (23.7%) 
  RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:
  Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-8200Y bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Amber/Kaby Lake note: check family: 6 model-id: 8E (142) stepping: 9 
  microcode: DE cache: L2: 4 MiB bogomips: 12805 
  Speed: 500 MHz min/max: 400/3900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 500 2: 500 3: 508 
  4: 601 
  Flags: 3dnowprefetch abm acpi adx aes aperfmperf apic arat arch_perfmon art 
  avx avx2 bmi1 bmi2 bts clflush clflushopt cmov constant_tsc cpuid 
  cpuid_fault cx16 cx8 de ds_cpl dtes64 dtherm dts epb erms est f16c flush_l1d 
  fma fpu fsgsbase fxsr ht hwp hwp_act_window hwp_epp hwp_notify ibpb ibrs ida 
  intel_pt invpcid invpcid_single lahf_lm lm mca mce md_clear mmx monitor 
  movbe mpx msr mtrr nonstop_tsc nopl nx pae pat pbe pcid pclmulqdq pdcm 
  pdpe1gb pebs pge pln pni popcnt pse pse36 pti pts rdrand rdseed rdtscp 
  rep_good sdbg sep smap smep ss ssbd sse sse2 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 stibp 
  syscall tm tm2 tsc tsc_adjust tsc_deadline_timer vme x2apic xgetbv1 xsave 
  xsavec xsaveopt xsaves xtopology xtpr 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX unsupported 
  Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 615 vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 
  v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:591c class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: Chicony HP Wide Vision FHD Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-9:3 chip-ID: 04f2:b634 class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter> 
  Display: wayland server: X .org 1.20.11 compositor: gnome-shell driver: 
  loaded: modesetting display-ID: 0 resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo> 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 615 (AML-KBL) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.1.2 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: snd_soc_skl v: kernel alternate: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 
  chip-ID: 8086:9d71 class-ID: 0401 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.12.9-1-MANJARO running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 0.125.0 running: no 
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.30 running: no 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless 8265 / 8275 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 3040 
  bus-ID: 6d:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:24fd class-ID: 0280 
  IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter> 
  IP v4: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global 
  broadcast: <filter> 
  IP v6: <filter> type: noprefixroute scope: link 
  WAN IP: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 
  bus-ID: 1-3:2 chip-ID: 8087:0a2b class-ID: e001 
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: see --recommends 
Logical:
  Permissions: Unable to run lvs. Root privileges required. 
RAID:
  Message: No RAID data found. 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 9.94 GiB (2.1%) 
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Toshiba model: N/A 
  size: 476.94 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s 
  lanes: 4 rotation: SSD serial: <filter> rev: AAHA4102 scheme: GPT 
  Message: No optical or floppy data found. 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 476.64 GiB size: 468.09 GiB (98.21%) used: 9.94 GiB (2.1%) 
  fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2 label: N/A 
  uuid: f9ecb6a8-c8bf-4f64-ba87-3debc989b67e 
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) 
  used: 288 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1 
  label: NO_LABEL uuid: 09AB-7ED9 
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found. 
Unmounted:
  Message: No unmounted partitions found. 
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 12 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 
  Device-1: 1-3:2 info: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: Bluetooth 
  driver: btusb interfaces: 2 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s power: 100mA 
  chip-ID: 8087:0a2b class-ID: e001 
  Device-2: 1-9:3 info: Chicony HP Wide Vision FHD Camera type: Video 
  driver: uvcvideo interfaces: 4 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s power: 500mA 
  chip-ID: 04f2:b634 class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter> 
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 6 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s 
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0003 class-ID: 0900 
  Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 
  Hub-4: 4-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 3.1 speed: 10 Gb/s 
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0003 class-ID: 0900 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 31.0 C mobo: 29.8 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 220 Uptime: 4m wakeups: 403 Init: systemd v: 248 tool: systemctl 
  Compilers: gcc: 11.1.0 Packages: pacman: 1156 lib: 292 flatpak: 0 Shell: Zsh 
  v: 5.8 running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.04 

xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 16 x 16, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 32767 x 32767
XWAYLAND0 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 290mm x 170mm
1920x1080 59.96*+

Thanks for any help!

So - not a DE/compositor or distribution specific issue.

Aha - a kernel issue.
Check the used kernel driver and its possible options, perhaps there is something there to get better results.

Btw. crossposting only splits efforts.

Thanks for the pointers!

Ive updated the post with what the tutorial wanted.

And yeah, Ive pretty much narrowed it to being a kernel issue. But, I’m gonna be honest and say most of the output of kernel drivers still goes over my head, do you happen to have some suggestion on what more specifically in there might cause the issue?

Also sorry about the crossposting, I got a bit impatient as I would like to fully convert this to a linux machine.