Read if you experience issues with screen flickering

[MarkHaysHarris777]

I've been studying the "noise" in the youTube(s) provided and have come to the conclusion that the "noise" is not coming from the Pinebook per se. It seems to be light interference pattern ( similar to the wave cancellation effects we commonly see with double slit experiments particularly using lasers.  

I am wondering if there is another light source ( HD TV, LEDs, fluorescent lighting, another computer monitor [particularly LED monitor], bright clock display, etc ) that might be causing the interference pattern being displayed.  The shimmer is very reminiscent of the same shimmer we expect to see when two LEDs are "beating" against one another , or similar to the "beating" cancelling effect we see when two lasers cross.


Try to remove other sources of "technical" lighting, use the display in a room with nature light and no other light sources including the TV, clocks, monitors, etc.

[atr.mbl]

Try to remove other sources of "technical" lighting, use the display in a room with nature light and no other light sources including the TV, clocks, monitors, etc.

That's not the case. The same in all light conditions. I'm pretty sure that's the hardware issue.

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Try to remove other sources of "technical" lighting, use the display in a room with nature light and no other light sources including the TV, clocks, monitors, etc.

That's not the case. The same in all light conditions. I'm pretty sure that's the hardware issue.

Also, this may be related to pwm noise...   please experiment with the brightness of the display...  is the noise any better or worse at different settings;  please post your results.

Thanks

[atr.mbl]

I've made some some experiments and here are the results:
First I want to mention that I've got Pinebook 14" with Ubuntu MATE.
Using the command:
# echo XXX > /sys/class/backlight/lcd0/brightness
I was start tweaking the backlight brightness of the screen. Here XXX is a number from 0 to 255. 
In fact, that didn't affect shimmering pixels very much. But it turns out there is a threshold value. If it is 248 or a greater number then some of the "noise" disappears from the screen. And if the value is 247 or less, there is more of it.
I cannot be sure but that number 248 (bin 11111000) leads me to the idea of 5-bit pwm for the backligh brightness. 
These shimmering pixels are more visible on flat, not very bright and not very dark, blue-green background. If there is a video playing on the screen it is more difficult to be seen BUT they are still pretty annoying for me.

[shirman]

To update your installation navitgate to /usr/local/sbin and run the following update scripts: 

Code:

sudo ./pine64_update_kernel.sh 0.6.2
sudo ./pine64_update_uboot.sh 0.6.2
sudo ./pine64_update_package.sh 0.6.2

Run all three and then reboot.

---

How can I get an actual stable kernel version? Is it still 0.6.2?

[Luke]

To update your installation navitgate to /usr/local/sbin and run the following update scripts: 

Code:

sudo ./pine64_update_kernel.sh 0.6.2
sudo ./pine64_update_uboot.sh 0.6.2
sudo ./pine64_update_package.sh 0.6.2

Run all three and then reboot.

---

How can I get an actual stable kernel version? Is it still 0.6.2?

Kernel version ? the kernel is 3.10.105 with ayufan's hacks. That's the only kernel except for mainline - but that's not fully usable yet. There is a BSP kernel 4.4 coming later this year for the A64.

There are 0.7.X images available with the same kernel (and additional functionality)  - all are pre-release however.

[schepers_cp]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGXScy4sl8Y

i dont know if this is normal: some random pixels spacing out on part of the screen when viewed from an angle (i applied the flickering patches because i was having slight flickering issues too)

seems to be happening at a high refresh rate?

best seen at higher 480p resolution on the video.

[BatteryDie]

Update scripts are helpful lot.

Now, I have new issue with noise random green pixel after booting linux to login screen. It's annoying than half-dead pixel. I noticed screen is running at 63hz. Was it caused noise random green pixel issue? I think it is not normal.

[Luke]

Quick update, as of the newest (at the time of writing) pre-release image you can set the display mode to eliminate flickering on your Pinebook. Read the full change log on ayufan's git.