Laptop Display (Dell) Flickers on Mint 20 Cinnamon

[Raina]

Dear all,

I'm using Linux Mint for years.
This week, I installed Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon on my Dell Laptop (E5450) (fresh install, repartitioning before)

Problem:
From time to time (every minute or so, sometimes every 2 or 3 minutes), the laptop screen flickers shortly.
Most often only black for a fraction of a second, sometimes I can also see a fraction of motion in the picture.

It only appears on Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon.
Mint 18 + Mint 19 are OK (I can still boot older Mint from external device)
External monitors are fine, too, only the internal laptop display is affected.
I'm using Linux Mint for years.

Do you have any idea what to try?

Thank you in advance,
Raina

Update:
I just plugged the drive to a newer Dell Laptop (E7270 = 7th Gen. Intel Chipset) and the flickering does not appear.
I plugged it back to the E5450 and flicker is back.
Again on E7270 and flickering is away.
Seems LM20 does not to like my E5450
Just to be sure, I'll now boot my old LM18 on the E5450, and use it for a while to see, whether flicker appears.

Update2:
I've now tested my old LM18 on the E5450 laptop, and flicker does not appear.
This means not a hardware defect.
As I really like the new Mint, I'll now install LMDE.

Update 3:
I just booted LMDE4 with Cinnamon Live installer image.
Same issue.

Update 4:
I did an apt update && apt upgrade on live image, and since then, the issue did not appear again.
On LM20 I had done an apt update && apt upgrade, too, but there it did not help. I guess the responsible patch will come soon into LM20 repositories.
During writing this, installation of LMDE4 is just in progress. I'm very curious

PS: The new feature of LM20 and LMDE4 installer image to use the rest of the usb stick for an overlay system is absolutely great!!!

Big Thanks to all the people who made all this possible for free - thank You!.
Raina

[AndyMH]

Information! Post the output of inxi -G

[Raina]

Code: Select all

mint@mint:~$ inxi -G
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 5500 driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 5500 (Broadwell GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 18.3.6

PS: The flicker just reappeared, but only once. There only thing that I recently changed was to connect my JBL Charge3 via Bluetooth, started installation in background, and -- wrote that it's now away. Maybe the latter was responsible . PPS: I'm still on the lmde4 live image.

[Raina]

@AndyMH you asked me to post 'inxi -G', so did I. Any idea?

[AndyMH]

@AndyMH you asked me to post 'inxi -G', so did I. Any idea?

Afraid not. Just wanted to check you weren't running an nvidia driver. Should not normally have a problem with intel integrated graphics, but there are others here who know a lot more about graphics than me. Best guess from my limited knowledge is that is it might be a kernel problem, if you have any earlier kernels installed try switching to one.

If you haven't any earlier kernels, install mainline:
http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/202 ... inux-mint/
Try a 4.15 kernel (that's what LM19 uses). Note these are mainline kernels, the kernels you get offered via mint update are 'tweaked', so use for testing.