Ubuntu – Ubuntu 16.04.2 and 16.10 screen goes black randomly for a second

16.04flickergraphicsintel graphics

This problem has occurred on 16.10 which is why I decided to stick with 16.04. Now with the 16.04.2 update, I'm getting the same issue.

Once in a while, very randomly (most noticeable while in the Terminal using the up key to get to a previous command or using the backspace key) my whole screen flickers black.

Before with Ubuntu 16.04.1, I didn't have that problem. I would update to Kernel 4.6 and install the Intel Graphics Update Tool and everything worked perfectly. Doing the same (without the Kernel update) on 16.04.2 does the same thing as other distros with Kernel 4.8 (or Ubuntu Gnome at 4.6).

Given I don't get the issue on the LiveDVD I tried not installing any drivers but that didn't help.

I've also tried adding i915.enable_psr=0 and i915.enable_rc6=0 to GRUB to no avail.

Can anyone help me please?

Best Answer

The X server in 16.04.2 point release has been back-ported from 16.10. That must be why you're facing the same issue on both of them.

I had been experiencing a lot of random flickering as well, after the upgrade.


Removing the new X stack seems to have fixed it:

sudo apt remove xserver-xorg-core-hwe-16.04 xserver-xorg-input-all-hwe-16.04 linux-generic-hwe-16.04 xserver-xorg-video-all-hwe-16.04


However, ubuntu-desktop will also be removed!

So, you need to do the following straight away:

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-core

sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-input-all libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx


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