Screen flickering since last update

This seems to be a lot like the problems other people are having since upgrading Plasma to 5.21, but not exactly the same and different hardware.
My screen is flickering/vibrating all the time since reboot after updating today, which was the first one in a long time and also brought my Plasma 5.21, among other things.

I 'm guessing a fix will have to be specific to my hardware, so here are my specs:

[ben@catull-mnj ~]$ inxi -Fxxxza
System:    Kernel: 5.10.18-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10-x86_64 
           root=UUID=fffb1150-d61b-4d16-bc88-4c01458edc4d rw splash 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.21.1 tk: Qt 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:   Type: Laptop Mobo: ZOTAC model: ZBOX-CI527/CI547 v: XX serial: <filter> 
           UEFI: American Megatrends v: B331P206 date: 04/25/2017 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-7200U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Amber/Kaby Lake 
           note: check family: 6 model-id: 8E (142) stepping: 9 microcode: DE L2 cache: 3 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 21607 
           Speed: 2694 MHz min/max: 400/3100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2694 2: 2697 3: 2694 4: 2695 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           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 HD Graphics 620 driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:5916 class ID: 0300 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: intel 
           unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa display ID: :0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") 
           s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
           Monitor-1: DP1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 81 size: 600x340mm (23.6x13.4") 
           diag: 690mm (27.2") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.4 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           alternate: snd_soc_skl bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:9d71 class ID: 0403 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.10.18-1-MANJARO 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-LM driver: e1000e v: kernel port: f040 bus ID: 00:1f.6 
           chip ID: 8086:156f class ID: 0200 
           IF: enp0s31f6 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8168 
           v: 8.048.03-NAPI modules: r8169 port: e000 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           class ID: 0200 
           IF: enp1s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           Device-3: Intel Wireless 3165 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: e000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
           chip ID: 8086:3165 class ID: 0280 
           IF: wlp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 
           bus ID: 1-8:4 chip ID: 8087:0a2a class ID: e001 
           Message: Required tool hciconfig not installed. Check --recommends 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 1.39 TiB used: 968.23 GiB (68.2%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Crucial model: CT525MX300SSD1 size: 489.05 GiB 
           block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: SSD 
           serial: <filter> rev: R060 scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 type: USB vendor: Western Digital model: WD10EFRX-68JCSN0 
           size: 931.51 GiB block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B serial: <filter> 
           scheme: MBR 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 480.85 GiB size: 472.3 GiB (98.22%) used: 400.43 GiB (84.8%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 
           ID-2: /boot/efi raw size: 301 MiB size: 300.4 MiB (99.80%) used: 268 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat 
           dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 7.91 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
           dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 68.0 C mobo: 29.8 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 275 Uptime: 1m wakeups: 0 Memory: 15.55 GiB used: 4.7 GiB (30.2%) 
           Init: systemd v: 247 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 Packages: 2133 apt: 4 pacman: 2119 lib: 496 
           flatpak: 10 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.0 running in: konsole inxi: 3.3.01 

Any suggestions?

It sounds like what I experienced last night after updating/rebooting. After I updated my system last night open windows, such as konsole, dolphin, firefox, etc., seemed to vibrate; moving up and down rapidly. A few weeks ago I was test driving EndeavourOS when they pushed out Plasma 5.21, and I remember reading about someone else having the same issue. So I found the thread, and found the person solved the issue. Here is the thread from over at the EndeavourOS forums: Since 5.21 there are glitches or something like that on my screen I tried the first option in the post marked as the solution (post #7 Solution), rebooted, and it worked. The issue has something to do with onboard Intel graphics.

I saw that one before, but I wasn’t sure it applied to my hardware.
Tried both configs now, and the first one workde for me:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
        Driver      "intel"
        Option      "AccelMethod"  "uxa"
        Option      "DRI" "False"
EndSection

Kernel 5.10.19 has fixes for these graphics glitches. I made no other changes besides the newer kernel.
My system:
CPU: Intel i3-4150 (4) @ 3.500GHz (Haswell)
GPU: Intel 4th Generation Core Processor Family (HD graphics 4400)

Note: this is a Fedora 33 Workstation - I am assuming the fixes are independent of the OS.

I did a clean install and experienced flickering in SDDM and unresponsiveness in KDE, changing theme settings or adding a widget resulted in a crash of the plasma desktop. Plasma would crash on login, so deleting all config files was necessary to be able to get a working desktop again.

Adding these options to Xorg fixed it.

Here’s my hardware info:

System:
  Kernel: 5.11.1-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.11-x86_64 
  root=UUID=9164ff02-a263-4ea7-a5ca-49e8d2f13b0e rw quiet apparmor=0 audit=0 
  security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3 
  Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.21.1 tk: Qt 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM 
  Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASRock model: G31M-S. serial: <filter> 
  BIOS: American Megatrends v: P2.10 date: 05/16/2012 
Memory:
  RAM: total: 3.83 GiB used: 1.49 GiB (38.8%) 
  RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:
  Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core2 6300 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Core Merom 
  family: 6 model-id: F (15) stepping: 6 microcode: D0 L2 cache: 2 MiB 
  bogomips: 9324 
  Speed: 1998 MHz min/max: 1603/1870 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1998 2: 2214 
  Flags: acpi aperfmperf apic arch_perfmon bts clflush cmov constant_tsc cpuid 
  cx16 cx8 de ds_cpl dtes64 dtherm dts est fpu fxsr ht lahf_lm lm mca mce mmx 
  monitor msr mtrr nopl nx pae pat pbe pdcm pebs pge pni pse pse36 pti 
  rep_good sep sse sse2 ssse3 syscall tm tm2 tpr_shadow tsc vme vmx xtpr 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: EPT disabled 
  Type: mds 
  status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT disabled 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass status: Vulnerable 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 
  mitigation: Full generic retpoline, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds status: Not affected 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel 82G33/G31 Express Integrated Graphics vendor: ASRock 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:29c2 class ID: 0300 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
  loaded: intel display ID: :0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1280x1024 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 338x270mm (13.3x10.6") 
  s-diag: 433mm (17") 
  Monitor-1: VGA1 res: 1280x1024 hz: 60 dpi: 91 size: 359x287mm (14.1x11.3") 
  diag: 460mm (18.1") 
  OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.1.0 128 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.4 
  compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio vendor: ASRock 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 chip ID: 8086:27d8 
  class ID: 0403 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.11.1-1-MANJARO 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet vendor: ASRock 
  driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e800 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8136 
  class ID: 0200 
  IF: enp1s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
  IP v4: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global 
  broadcast: <filter> 
  IP v6: <filter> type: noprefixroute scope: link 
  WAN IP: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Message: No Bluetooth data was found. 
RAID:
  Message: No RAID data was found. 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 12.24 GiB (1.3%) 
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Seagate model: ST1000LM035-1RK172 
  size: 931.51 GiB block size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B 
  speed: <unknown> rotation: 5400 rpm serial: <filter> rev: ACM2 scheme: MBR 
  Message: No Optical or Floppy data was found. 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw size: 53.71 GiB size: 52.57 GiB (97.87%) used: 9.59 GiB (18.2%) 
  fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 maj-min: 8:5 label: N/A 
  uuid: 9164ff02-a263-4ea7-a5ca-49e8d2f13b0e 
  ID-2: /home raw size: 437.76 GiB size: 429.82 GiB (98.19%) 
  used: 2.65 GiB (0.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6 maj-min: 8:6 label: N/A 
  uuid: e9e52758-6ac1-4350-b6e0-7957bfb03636 
Swap:
  Alert: No Swap data was found. 
Unmounted:
  ID-1: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 size: 600 MiB fs: ntfs label: System Reserved 
  uuid: F49CE1959CE152A2 
  ID-2: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 size: 48.83 GiB fs: ntfs label: Win10x64 
  uuid: 4A32E31E32E30E2F 
  ID-3: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3 size: 390.62 GiB fs: ntfs label: Datos 
  uuid: F858DB6058DB1C66 
  ID-4: /dev/sda4 maj-min: 8:4 size: 1 KiB fs: <superuser required> label: N/A 
  uuid: N/A 
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 8 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip ID: 1d6b:0002 class ID: 0900 
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s 
  chip ID: 1d6b:0001 class ID: 0900 
  Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s 
  chip ID: 1d6b:0001 class ID: 0900 
  Device-1: 3-2:2 info: China Resource Semico USB Keyboard type: Keyboard,HID 
  driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 1.5 Mb/s 
  chip ID: 1a2c:0e24 class ID: 0300 
  Hub-4: 4-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s 
  chip ID: 1d6b:0001 class ID: 0900 
  Hub-5: 5-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s 
  chip ID: 1d6b:0001 class ID: 0900 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 65.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:
  Processes: 156 Uptime: 2h 25m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 247 Compilers: 
  gcc: N/A Packages: pacman: 1233 lib: 353 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.0 
  running in: yakuake inxi: 3.3.01

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