this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2024

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Could an update brick my display [EndeavourOS]? (lemmings.world)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by [email protected] to c/linux

12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Yesterday I did an update (using yes | yay) for about 75 packages on my 6 year old EndeavourOS system. I do updates every 2 weeks in general. Rebooted, did some work and left the screen on, for an hour (I usually do this). Came back and saw my screen having weird doubling text glitch, [like this screenshot above]. This issue also visible on my firmware setting (BIOS) screen, which leads me to believe this might be a h/w issue, though not sure.

I want to know whether an arch update can break my display. One particular thing I noticed this morning was, when i adjusted my display brightness, the screen went back to normal for a minute or so.

Also recently I changed my battery about 2 months ago. This was my second battery replacement. After I did my first battery replacement (3 years ago), my laptop had similar display issues with Intel integrated graphics on Windows a month later. which forced me to switch. It was fine on Linux, up until now. So it got me thinking if there is any connection with battery replacements and display issues. I know it sounds weird. Earlier there were not display anomalies on the BIOS screen, but now there is.

Is there a way to fix this.

System info: HP Envy, EndeavourOS Linux 6.12.1-arch1-1, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U with Intel UHD Graphics 620

[Update 1]
I hooked up my laptop to an external monitor and everything looks fine on the monitor screen. So the issue is only with my Laptop’s screen I guess.

[Update 2]

Packages I upgraded yesterday

alsa-card-profiles alsa-ucm-conf alsa-utils sqlite npth systemd-libs libsysprof-capture gnupg file systemd pacman archlinux-keyring bash-completion btrfs-progs c-ares dav1d dkms edk2-ovmf ell eos-translations fastfetch spirv-tools glslang libpipewire pipewire pipewire-audio libwireplumber wireplumber pipewire-jack libjxl shaderc libplacebo pixman ffmpeg noto-fonts firefox flatpak fluidsynth fwupd gst-plugin-pipewire iwd js115 js128 less libbpf libsynctex libtool openal mpv noto-fonts-extra passt perl-image-exiftool pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse pkgconf plocate pv qt6-translations qt6-base qt6-declarative qt6-multimedia-ffmpeg qt6-multimedia qt6-svg qt6-wayland sudo systemd-resolvconf systemd-sysvcompat ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols-common ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols virtiofsd webkit2gtk-4.1 webkitgtk-6.0 welcome xterm librewolf-bin librewolf-bin-deb

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[–] rowinxavier 10 points 6 days ago (2 children)

That is Lorem ipsum, a test text used usually for doing layout and playing around with text processing. I have absolutely no idea why it would be showing up on boot.

That said, no idea why you would have this type of issue. Do you have BTRFS? With Timeshift? If so, you should have the option to boot into an earlier version, as it was before the update.

If not, to clarify, is this happening in the BIOS as well? The doubling of text lines with some cutoff? Can you show a photo of that too? And do you have an external monitor to connect? Maybe something happened with the display itself and it isn't software at all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Sorry for not clarifying. The screenshot is not my boot screen. The system boots up into EOS fine but only issue is the display's weird doubling effect. This screenshot is lorem ipsum text on a text editor to show my screen's state (I will clarify it on my post description). I did what you said, hooked up my laptop to an external monitor and everything looks fine on the monitor screen. So the issue is only with my Laptop's screen I guess. Also yes, the doubling glitch is present on the bootup screen, BIOS screen. Unfortunately I don't have timeshift.

[–] rowinxavier 1 points 6 days ago

OK, so it sounds like you may have a loose ribbon cable. I have had a couple of similar issues where the number of lines is not reporting correctly so the system doubles up or halves weirdly. This has in most cases been a loose or dirty ribbon cable connecting the screen to the motherboard. Unplugging and replugging the ribbon cable is likely to solve the issue if that is the cause, you really don't need much friction and ribbon cables are very delicate.

I think the update timing is probably just a coincidence, there is not really a simple path for updating something to impact your screen in BIOS unless you have microcode updates or something similar, but really it is probably not from updates.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

That said, no idea why you would have this type of issue. Do you have BTRFS? With Timeshift? If so, you should have the option to boot into an earlier version, as it was before the update.

Other file systems have backups working perfectly fine.

[–] rowinxavier 3 points 6 days ago

True, but EndeavourOS recommends BTRFS and Timeshift, so that was the most likely backup solution in place. I personally like it, but not making any judgement, just asking based on highest likelihood.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

It looks a bit like your graphics output is pushing a resolution or your laptop screen doesn't support. Are you able to check those settings for that screen?

Barring that, power cycle is the most common time for electronic components to fail. There's a chance the screen failed at the same time as you did the update.

I don't have any other ideas, but maybe someone will.

[–] rtxn 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

using yes | yay

Don't do that. You don't know what prompt you're replying to with "y". Use yay -Syu --noconfirm if you want to run it unattended.

Could you list the packages that were updated? grep upgraded /var/log/pacman.log, then copy the lines that have the correct date.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Package list

[–] rtxn 1 points 6 days ago

The one that stands out to me is fwupd. If it has a pacman hook, it's possible that it might have borked some firmware on the computer. Try flashing a firmware update manually. You might be able to downgrade to the last working version or the factory default if the motherboard supports Flashback.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

you got multiple font packages there, but I think they are for Wayland/X not for console. (my initial thought looking at the picture was "bad console font setting")

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I’ve been doing PC hardware for over 25 years. This is likely related to your laptop display - either the cable connecting the panel to the motherboard, the panel itself, or some motherboard component connected to the display output that has failed.

Try pivoting the display back and forth and see if the glitches change in response. If they do, it’s the cable.

Beyond that, you’d need to do some testing to find the hardware component that has gone bad.

[–] KrapKake 3 points 6 days ago

Hardware issue.