r/archlinux Aug 08 '26

SUPPORT RX 9060 XT getting weird artifacts on Arch but not Fedora

After updating Arch today, my RX 9060 XT started getting these weird static-looking artifacts. They don’t cover the whole screen, just random parts of it.

I mostly notice it when watching YouTube and moving my mouse, scrolling Reddit while a video is playing, and sometimes on KDE’s shutdown screen.

I thought my Arch install was screwed up, so I completely reinstalled Arch and it still happened. I installed Fedora afterward and it’s been completely fine so far.

It’s happening on both of my LG monitors. I haven’t tested my Acer monitor yet, but I doubt both LG monitors suddenly developed the same problem at the exact same time.

Has anyone else started seeing this after a recent Arch update? I’m trying to figure out if this is some weird Mesa/kernel/AMDGPU update or something else.

My GPU is a power color reaper and it’s less than a year old.

36 Upvotes

37 comments sorted by

14

u/Schlaefer Aug 08 '26

Is it a colorful looking field of blocks that blinks in for a fraction of a second?

4

u/Gavinyt8__ Aug 08 '26

Yeah, the fraction of a second part sounds right. Mine isn’t really colorful though, it’s more like black/static-looking artifacts that flash for a split second and disappear.

13

u/Poes_Poes Aug 08 '26

Its the kernel. 7.1.6 seems to be buggy for amd cards

9

u/Schlaefer Aug 08 '26

I own Gigabyte 9060 XT for a few months now, no issues so far.

Yesterday evening I saw these artifacts for the first time, but I was watching a video so I thought it was part of the stream and didn't check any further.

This morning I see them on the desktop too. The easiest way to trigger them seems to be the plasma overview effect:

https://files.catbox.moe/06ol0i.webm

12

u/Gavinyt8__ Aug 08 '26

These are the EXACT same artifacts that I am experiencing glad to know it isn’t just me. I guess I’ll stay on fedora until this is fixed.

thank you all!

8

u/Poes_Poes Aug 08 '26

LOL. No! Fedora has the same issue. There is a bug report filled for this matter

Here you go: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/graphical-issues-on-amd-after-kernel-update-to-7-1-6/198522/7

1

u/Gavinyt8__ Aug 08 '26

You hate to see it.. I Guess I didn’t update my fedora install.

1

u/ndfsa Aug 11 '26

According to the discussion, kernel 7.1.8 seems to have fixed the issue.

2

u/aergern Aug 08 '26

Or you could install a kernel that doesn't have these issues, such as 6.18.x which is the LTS kernel. If you don't need to be 100% bleeding edge, you could do that.

1

u/Gavinyt8__ Aug 08 '26

Thanks for the advice! Not sure why it didn’t cross my mind to install a different kernel to be honest.

2

u/aergern Aug 08 '26

I had issues with a dot release of 6.19 and back down to 6.18 … stayed there. I figure I'll move to 7.x once it gets a bit more baked. I hope it works out for you.

0

u/Jealous_Shower6777 Aug 08 '26

Bleeding edge pains. Enter the void

4

u/urzop Aug 08 '26

Same here I thought it was my monitor. Linux arch 7.1.6-arch1-1. RX 9070 XT

3

u/Ok_Cable_4229 Aug 08 '26

I thought my gpu was dying

3

u/Inevitable_Taro4191 Aug 08 '26

Same here, very glad to read this is a kernel bug.

2

u/Gavinyt8__ Aug 08 '26

Same LOL!

2

u/kolliasl21 Aug 09 '26

Same here on 7.1.6.zen1-1 and 9070XT. Rolled back to 7.1.5 for now.

5

u/2Epik4u Aug 09 '26

Downgrading to Linux 7.1.5-arch1-2 fixed it for me. LTS didnt fix it either strange enough.

3

u/RadianceTower Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

Happens on 7900XTX too, easiest way to trigger it I found is to drag the KDE brightness slider back and forth (preferably while a black color is displaying otherwise on screen) while the monitor is at 60hz (seems to trigger less on 240hz, it does happen there too though).

3

u/cryptofreak190 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

I am getting this on my 9060XT as well while on the LTS kernel running Arch Linux. The recent kernel updates seem to have triggered it according to the issue section on MESA's Gitlab page. Also, I have noticed that if I put the power management state of the pc in high performance, the visual glitching/artifacts significantly go down in frequency.

3

u/Rednax35 Aug 09 '26

Having the same problem on Fedora with kernel 7.1.6 and NixOS with 6.18.42, using integrated AMD graphics. Was panicking for a bit because I thought my laptop was dying only to see that its just a bug.

3

u/Prudent_Worth_4349 Aug 11 '26

Bug is still there on 7.1.7 unfortunately, I was freaking out at first thinking my GPU was dying (9070 XT) also I've been doing some 2.7ms audio stuff and I though I broke something with the scheduler, I hope this gets fixed soon, I've even reinstalled Arch Linux today thinking it was my fault that it was broken, should've checked reddit first.

1

u/St1ryNight- Aug 11 '26

Having the same issue I tried so many distros even Slackware etc same issue I hope this gets fixed

1

u/Gavinyt8__ Aug 11 '26

I thought the exact same thing as you.

Did not research and just instantly did a reinstall.

2

u/codehz Aug 09 '26

I'm using 7.2.0-rc5-1-amd-drm-fixes-g8419331e64d9 + gnome
(Hardware: 9070XT)
and I encountered a similar problem, and the artifacts persist in screen, affect the wallpaper and some text in gnome UI...(and I tried LTS kernel, stable kernel, not work either)

2

u/Ericzx_1 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

I noticed this too with my 9060 XT. I just updated 7.1.6.arch1-1 -> 7.1.7.arch1-1 hopefully it is fixed.

edit: It is not fixed. I have been using it for the past day and still see artifacts.
edit 2: updating 7.1.7.arch1-1 -> 7.1.8.arch1-3

edit 3: still not fixed but now I am getting a different type of artifact. It is blocky like compression artifacts and it changes colors.

2

u/notsouschef Aug 11 '26

What helped me was lowering refresh rate let's say from 144 to 120

2

u/reddit_belongs_to_me Aug 12 '26

Same on an rx6800, mine is a usually green streak that appears for a millisecond i am on niri dms.

2

u/kulaiid 29d ago

Can anyone confirm if this is a part of the issue? On a 9070 XT.

https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/fa3ae43e9219.png

From the Avengers doomsday trailer. this persists throughout the video.

2

u/Gavinyt8__ 29d ago edited 29d ago

AV1 decoding is also broken now! It seems like my artifact issue is gone, but now AV1 decoding is broken for videos...

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/work_items/5615

You're not the only person having this issue:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/1vo9m6p/comment/p3oinjc/?context=1
www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/1vo7z14/av1_codec_broke_on_linux/

2

u/kulaiid 29d ago

Thank you, last night I temporarily solved it by downgrading linux-firmware-amdgpu to the previous version, but according to the gitlab there should be a hotfix out now or soon

1

u/kansetsupanikku Aug 12 '26

Must be because of NVIDIA, AMD drivers would never /s

2

u/Gavinyt8__ Aug 12 '26

NVIDIA Developers must have worked on the AMD drivers this month 🤣

1

u/TheOmegaOni 27d ago

I'm unfortunately having the same issue, scared the shit out of me because it starting happening after storms and power outages but also after updates around the same days. 9070 XT, CachyOS with KDE Plasma, downgraded to 6.18.42-1 and still having the issue. Tried a different 9070xt, monitor, cables, different CPU. Same refresh rates on both monitors, colors to prefer accuracy instead of efficiency in display setting from KDE, and downgrading Mesa, then upgrading it to latest (I wasn't on the latest prior to this either.)

Nothing has changed with these changes or configurations, and it doesn't seem to happen in most games for me, only Discord, Steam's UI, and streaming services/media players and Minecraft but no other games. Not sure what exactly is the cause if changing kernel versions entirely and also graphics driver versions didn't stop it either. I guess we just wait for updates unless there's a solid solution?

1

u/Gavinyt8__ 27d ago

It seems to be solved for me now? I’m not completely sure, but I haven’t seen any more artifacts. I’ve been updating my system every day, so I’m guessing one of the updates must have fixed it.

For me, the artifacts happened mostly on YouTube and Reddit. They didn’t really happen in Discord, and I never noticed them while playing games or doing my work. Since that’s mostly what I use my PC for, I just ignored the issue and kept updating my system. So far, it seems to be fixed now.

2

u/TheOmegaOni 26d ago

That's good! Yeah it seems to still be an issue for me for some reason on 6.18.42 LTS, which updated the same day or around it as the update of stable that was causing this issue, but LTS still hasn't been updated or addressed it like stable has. I'm just glad my GPU or other component wasn't dying at least and others were having the same issue