1272138 - Repeating graphics corruption in ASUS Zenbook with Intel HD Graphics 5500 & Nvidia GeForce GT 940M

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Graphics: Layers, defect)

Description

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

Attachment: Screenshot of the bug (no. 1)

On the ASUS Zenbook UX303LB with the following specs:

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-5200U (3MB Cache, 2.20 / 2.70 GHz)
RAM: 8 GB DDR3
Hard drive: SSD 480GB (SV300S37A/480G KINGSTON)
Graphics card: Intel® HD Graphics 5500, Nvidia® GeForce GT 940M
Screen: 13,3 cala 1920 x 1080 (Full HD) matte
(more details in Polish at http://archiwum.allegro.pl/oferta/laptop-asus-zenbook-ux303lb-i5-13-3-8gb-ssd-480gb-i5946148457.html)

with default Firefox settings (i.e. hardware acceleration enabled) on Windows 10 from time to time when switching from another app (like Adobe Reader) some parts of the interface are blank. Sometimes typing sth in the address bar and making suggestions happen also leave parts of the suggestions list blank (see screenshots). Moving the mouse over the blank areas makes them show again, optionally switching to another app & back to Firefox sometimes helped.

Disabling the hardware acceleration in Firefox settings makes the problem go away.

This has been happening for a few months, on a fresh Firefox profile with some extensions, history etc. synced via Firefox sync. Note that originally we bought another, newer generation of the ASUS Zenbook, UX303UA with the specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7-6500U (4 MB cache, 2.50 / 3.10 GHz)
RAM: 12 GB (SO-DIMM DDR3, 1600 MHz)
Hard drive: 500 GB SSD SATA III
Graphics card: Intel HD Graphics 520
(more details in Polish at http://www.x-kom.pl/p/270884-ultrabook-133-asus-ux303ua-r4049t-12-i7-6500u-12gb-500ssd-win10.html)

and it had the same issues. I googled & found others are experiencing the same problems with this Intel graphics card:
https://communities.intel.com/thread/96663?start=0&tstart=0
https://communities.intel.com/thread/96189?start=0&tstart=0
so we returned the laptop & bought an older model with an older Intel HD Graphics card but it didn't help.

Disabling HW acceleration solves the problem but makes heavier sites like Google Maps work really slow which is unexpected on a new laptop that wasn't one of the cheapest ones.

NOTE: This is not my computer but I have access to it so I can get logs/more info for you if necessary. I can't tell you if the issue is Firefox-only but when I was googling it I found only mentions of it appearing on Firefox (like in those 2 links I posted).

Comment 1

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

Attachment: Screenshot of the bug (no. 2)

Comment 2

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

Attachment: Screenshot of the bug (no. 3)

Comment 3

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

Potentially related: bug 1203169, bug 1267068.

Comment 4

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

The "Graphics" section of about:support (let me know if it being in Polish is problematic to you):

Asynchroniczne przewijanie/powiększanie    brak
Data sterownika    8-31-2015
Data sterownika (GPU #2)    3-3-2016
GPU #2 Active    false
ID dostawcy    0x8086
ID dostawcy (GPU #2)    0x10de
ID podsystemu    183d1043
ID podsystemu (GPU #2)    12df1043
ID urządzenia    0x1616
ID urządzenia (GPU #2)    0x1347
Okna ze sprzętowym przyspieszeniem grafiki    1/1 Direct3D 11 (OMTC)
Opis adaptera    Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500
Opis adaptera (GPU #2)    NVIDIA GeForce 940M
RAM adaptera    Unknown
RAM adaptera (GPU #2)    2048
Renderer WebGL    Google Inc. -- ANGLE (Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500 Direct3D11 vs_5_0 ps_5_0)
Sprzętowe dekodowanie H.264    Yes
Sterowniki adaptera    igdumdim64 igd10iumd64 igd10iumd64 igd12umd64 igdumdim32 igd10iumd32 igd10iumd32 igd12umd32
Sterowniki adaptera (GPU #2)    nvd3dumx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx,nvwgf2umx nvd3dum,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um,nvwgf2um
Wersja sterownika    10.18.15.4281
Wersja sterownika (GPU #2)    10.18.13.6447
windowLayerManagerRemote    true
Włączone Direct2D    true
Włączone DirectWrite    true (10.0.10586.0)
AzureCanvasBackend    direct2d 1.1
AzureContentBackend    direct2d 1.1
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend    cairo
AzureSkiaAccelerated    0

Comment 5

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

This Firefox has had manually disabled hardware acceleration for a month or so, this behavior was observed on Firefox versions older than 46. I've re-enabled it to test now so I'll report back here when this issue happens again; this issue has existed for over three months, though so I'd be surprised if anything changed during that time.

Comment 6

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

The corruption has just happened again so the problem still exists in Firefox 46.0.1 on a fully updated Windows 10.

Should I try to install https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25948/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-10-and-Windows-7-8-1-15-40? Graphics drivers should be pushed with Windows updates, shouldn't they?

Comment 7

[Mason Chang [Inactive] [:mchang]]

How often is this happening for you? Are there any specific set of websites that you're visiting that reliably reproduce this? How many tabs do you have open when this is happening?

Comment 8

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

This happens on various websites as you can see on the screenshots. I don't think any specific page triggers that, you can see from the screenshots they vary a lot and the first screenshot has only 3 tabs open.

I don't know any reliable way of reproducing it other than just using Firefox on this machine; it does happen often (more than once a day usually).

Comment 9

[Mason Chang [Inactive] [:mchang]]

Do you know if there is anyway to disable 1 GPU either in the bios or disabling one of the GPUs in the device manager? I'm curious to see if this is an issue due to the dual GPU configuration.

Comment 10

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

Would forcing the OS to use only one of those cards be enough? That is, is it necessary to disable the card completely or would just preventing the graphics switching suffice?

Comment 11

[Mason Chang [Inactive] [:mchang]]

(In reply to Michał Gołębiowski [:m_gol] from comment #10)
> Would forcing the OS to use only one of those cards be enough? That is, is
> it necessary to disable the card completely or would just preventing the
> graphics switching suffice?

Just preventing the graphics switch might be enough.

Comment 12

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

OK, I've forced the dedicated Nvidia graphics card via the Nvidia Control Panel, I'll report back after the weekend.

Comment 13

[NVD]

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/102385/en-us

Can you please update to 365.19 WHQL driver and test?

Comment 14

[Mason Chang [Inactive] [:mchang]]

I'd also be interested to see if this build fixes it - https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/try-builds/[e-mail]-4ac211b9ef42eae206347c5b8c80643beea01dc9/

Comment 15

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

An update:

(In reply to NVD from comment #13)
> http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/102385/en-us
> 
> Can you please update to 365.19 WHQL driver and test?

1) The updated Nvidia drivers didn't help. I updated to the version linked in comment 13 but it immediately saw newer updates so it currently uses version 368.22.
2) Hardcoding the Nvidia control panel to always use Nvidia and never the Intel card didn't help.

(In reply to Mason Chang [:mchang] from comment #14)
> I'd also be interested to see if this build fixes it -
> https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/try-builds/[e-mail]-
> 4ac211b9ef42eae206347c5b8c80643beea01dc9/

The user of this computer is not accustomed to experimental versions of software and they use Firefox as their main browser, also for banking purposes so I don't feel comfortable asking them to use a nightly Firefox version. Would it be possible to apply a patch over the current stable or beta? How do updates look like after this custom version is installed?

Ideally I'd ask them to use this custom Firefox version that would not be that different from stable & then, after a testing period, restore the regular stable channel.

Comment 16

[NVD]

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/103915/en-us

Nvidia 368.39 WHQL driver released, but I think you need to upgrade to the latest Intel driver from Intel's website to fix Intel driver bugs.

Comment 17

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

(In reply to NVD from comment #16)
> http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/103915/en-us
> 
> Nvidia 368.39 WHQL driver released, but I think you need to upgrade to the
> latest Intel driver from Intel's website to fix Intel driver bugs.

Sure but the bugs existed even when the dedicated card was forced so Intel bugs shouldn't matter here.

Comment 18

[Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek [:mgol]]

After some weeks of testing with new drivers the problem hasn't appeared even though the hardware acceleration checkbox is enabled in Firefox settings. Should we consider it resolved?

Comment 19

[Andrew Overholt [:overholt]]

Thanks, Michał, let's call it resolved because we've had at least a few similar/related issues that were also fixed with driver updates. Please re-open if you can reproduce again.