Linux Desktop - Video Fix

This isn't purely a Linux thing, I started having this problem when I "upgraded" from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

In short, putting the mouse pointer in particular places on the screen (normally near the bottom - where the task bar and application icons are usually put) would cause the screen to go blank; come back; go blank; come back; and repeat until I moved the mouse pointer somewhere else. It was completely intermittent but it was happening before I upgraded (really - an actual upgrade) to a Linux desktop. But the problem persisted so it's either a generic driver issue (across two operating systems) or a BIOS issue (but there is no later BIOS firwmare available).

The video card is an Intel UHD Graphics 630. So hopefully the tip below will help someone else - or help me when I do a reinstall at some future time.

At least on an Ubuntu variant, do the following (as root, I'd say but whatever permissions work for you):

• Edit /etc/default/grub
  • There will be a line that says something like GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT='quiet splash'
• Change that line by adding intel_iommu=igfx_off to the options. For example:
  • GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT='quiet splash intel_iommu=igfx_off'
• Run grub-mkconfig
• Reboot

And that's it! It disables some sort of DMA access to the graphics card which (in theory) means that screen performance in general is little slower but I haven't noticed, even playing games. And it does appear to have solved the screen blanking issue. Yay!