Thinkpads Forum

Im asking this because im not sure how much of this issue is due to hardware and how much due to software. Im using Linux Mint as operating system. Thing is, when I use my X61 alone, no matter if configured with 50hz or 60hz refresh rate I get no tearing. But, when docked, I get both tearing in the external monitor im using and the laptop screen. The external monitor is configured with its suported 60hz.

Now weird thing comes, when I set the same resolution in the monitor as the x61 screen the tearing issue disappears, but ofc this is very low resolution and id like to use native monitor resolution.

Any ideas?

What's the resolution of the external monitor?

axur-delmeria wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 5:46 am

What's the resolution of the external monitor?

1600x900

I'll test with my X61 and a 1920x1200 monitor running Debian Linux 10 Xfce and report ASAP.

Thanks. Apparently it´s an issue with my display. Ive tried today a different pannel, 1920x1080 and had no tearing issues. Thing is, I dont know why on earth im having issues with this pannel

Have you tried the problematic monitor in other laptops, preferably ones of the same vintage as the X61?

I just tried mine on the 1920x1200 monitor, and experienced tearing when watching 720p videos on scenes with fast movement and abrupt scene changes. It's even worse with 1080p videos.

But I guess that's expected. Then again, I've seen much worse: the SiS Mirage 3 on a sorry excuse of a laptop had lots of frame drops while playing 720p video despite having a faster processor (Pentium Dual Core T4500@2.3GHz) than my X61 Tablet (Core 2 Duo L7700@1.8GHz).

axur-delmeria wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 09, 2021 7:48 am

Have you tried the problematic monitor in other laptops, preferably ones of the same vintage as the X61?

I just tried mine on the 1920x1200 monitor, and experienced tearing when watching 720p videos on scenes with fast movement and abrupt scene changes. It's even worse with 1080p videos.

But I guess that's expected. Then again, I've seen much worse: the SiS Mirage 3 on a sorry excuse of a laptop had lots of frame drops while playing 720p video despite having a faster processor (Pentium Dual Core T4500@2.3GHz) than my X61 Tablet (Core 2 Duo L7700@1.8GHz).

I have used it with more modern pcs and never had an issue. Thing is, I could run videos In the same quality as I always do in a higher res monitor and didnt get tearing.

And im not talking about 720p video tearing, thats more of a cpu bottleneck. Im talking about playing youtube videos in 480p and tearing tests being a mess. Thats what I mean, I use a tearing test video just to check im not going nuts and its clear af that this monitor shows a lot of it

IIRC browsers (especially Firefox) has poor V-sync support on Linux.

I think it's not strictly a CPU bottleneck, but more on the GMA X3100, as its memory bandwidth is limited to DDR2-667, and that it has to share with the processor. That said, I don't have any Core 2 laptop with ATI or nVidia graphics to compare with.

axur-delmeria wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 8:43 am

IIRC browsers (especially Firefox) has poor V-sync support on Linux.

I think it's not strictly a CPU bottleneck, but more on the GMA X3100, as its memory bandwidth is limited to DDR2-667, and that it has to share with the processor. That said, I don't have any Core 2 laptop with ATI or nVidia graphics to compare with.

That makes sense considering I only experience this tearing on firefox. I tried modifying all the graphic settings but still happens. Do you recommend any browser in particular that I can try?

On Firefox, you could try forcing layer acceleration by setting layers.acceleration.force-enabled=true in about:config. I dunno if this improves things.

axur-delmeria wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 12, 2021 5:37 am

On Firefox, you could try forcing layer acceleration by setting layers.acceleration.force-enabled=true in about:config. I dunno if this improves things.

Tried in nothing.

Update: i´ve downloaded the tearing test video on my laptop to see if it´s a firefox issue and it isn´t, I still get tearing. I will try to make a bootable usb of another distro to see if I get the same issues.

Update: Seem to be an OS configuration issue. I tried booting a live usb with Manjaro on it and there was no tearing, so some sort of XORG file was giving issues. Thanks.

Make a backup of the files at /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/, then delete the originals.