I’ve seen some other reports of this online but seems no one has a fix for it so figured I’d make a post here to see if anyone else has other ideas to try.
I am really wanting to move away from Windows (for the obvious reasons), but still haven’t been able to go Linux on the desktop without a number of big issues holding me back (I’m a Linux sysadmin, it’s not a lack of know how).
Point is, things like this make it hard to stick with it lol. In short, random applications (as far as I can tell no pattern to which ones but each one that does do it, does it consistently) if in the bottom right corner of my main display, will tear/flicker and show parts of the desktop wallpaper behind them.
I’ve included a video of what I’m seeing with Steam as the current application. This does happen in games too with random moments being super weird in that bottom right corner.
If it helps, this is the most recent CachyOS build, I tried with both open and proprietary NVidia drivers (4090), and I’m using KDE Plasma.
If this is intended as a home gaming system. Would definitely recommend trying Bazzite. Much larger user base, immutable, and more likely to be well tested. Still not perfect by any stretch, but it has a good documentation base and tends to work well.
For the flickering issue… Would be interested to know your full system specs? Have you tried changing cables? Confirming refresh is set properly? VRR/Gsync turned off/on?
I have seen FBC/PSR cause such issues with intel iGPUs a couple years back. So possibly try disabling those as well.
This is really more of a home workstation that I also game on a lot, personally Bazzite is going to be too limiting for me anyway so hoping to get CachyOS working or might just go back to Rocky or Ubuntu and deal with more pain in the ass with the NVidia drivers.
As for system specs, I’ll put those below, but it is worth noting that this setup works 100% flawlessly on Windows (well aside from Windows being garbage), the flickering is definitely not a hardware issue and I’ve found 1 or 2 other posts with an identical flickering issue with CachyOS elsewhere (though it took a bit of time to find them and I forgot to save them).
System is a 7950X3D on an Aorus X870e w/ 128GB of RAM and a 4090 (and all SSDs for the storage).
Refresh is set properly, scaling and all that is as well, VRR off or on doesn’t make a difference.
I did see some stuff about DSC causing the issue but turning that off is a no go personally.
I do have the AMD GPU enabled, though not in use by anything.
I’ll have to give this another go on a different SSD though, went back to Windows shortly after this (for the second time after trying CachyOS lol) and debating where to go from here. I desperately want to get away, but I am unsure Arch based distros is the way to go.
Arch mentioned!
I’ve run arch (straight up) on a lot of systems over the years, and with a variety of hardware. I can’t say I’ve had your specific issue…
Maybe you could live boot another is and see if you are having the same issues? Manjaro or something even.
Hmm, I even have a Samsung g9 like that, 7950 non 3d, and used to use a 3090…
I’m pretty fresh on Linux myself, only about a year, and recently was distro hopping both because kind of fun, and while waiting to replace my computer, which I just did with an AMD Max+ 395 box. What I finally settled on was that if a distro took me more than a few hours to install and get apps up and running, then it just wasn’t helping me accomplish anything, regardless of the reason. As much as I want to have the most recent kernel to take advantage of the Max+395/128G, that isn’t happening if I can’t get it to give me access to my server files with the right permissions, for example. So I went with Kubuntu 25.10, as I like Plasma, and Ubuntu has reasonably fresh kernels now, “and just runs”. I still can choose BTRFS for example, but far easier to look up problems online, and to install apps via Discover. I’d rather tinker with photos and Home Assistant than just tinkering with the terminal!
So no advice on your video problem, but a perspective on Distros.
Would definitely check out Nobara or plain Fedora then. Since you aren’t locked down and they are generally more stable than Arch.
I would try lowering refresh within the OS. I went through my Linux notes and I had some odd flickering issues with my monitor when it was set to 165Hz while on Linux even though it worked fine on windows.
Can you elaborate what you mean by DSC?
This should not matter.
I’m thinking this is a CachyOS issue and/or an Nvidia Driver being wonky. Would be worth trying a different distro.
I have been debating trying Fedora, it’s on the short list at least. I think I am going to give the latest Ubuntu desktop a shot here soon though and go from there.
I will give lowering refresh a shot again if I do go back to CachyOS at all. I nuked the drive already (need the space for some other stuff so going to grab an external M.2 I have to try the next distro I go with). Even then, I don’t want to drop down from 240hz just to use Cachy haah.
DSC is display stream compression, but I can’t disable that given my monitors resolution and refresh rate.
I second it being a NVidia Driver or Cachy OS issue in specific and not something related to the AMD GPU.
Appreciate the feedback for sure. Ubuntu is probably my next one to try out, but still debating on that a bit. I won’t be home for about a week so can’t really test it right now, but it is where I have the most experience administering servers afterall, so already really familiar with it.
I am going to try different distros here soon. The cable itself should be fine though, replaced it not that long ago due to one that was indeed causing issues.
Also sorry to everyone on this thread for replying 3 times instead of just 1 time with quotes, not sure why my brain did that lol.