1440026 - screen and sound freezes on nvidia optimus systems

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1412977

(Core :: Graphics, defect, P3)

Description

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Attachment: about_support.txt

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:58.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/58.0
Build ID: 20180206200532

Steps to reproduce:

First of all, It's an bug strictly related to nvidia drivers, that happened to a lot of ppl with GTX10XX gpu laptops like in those videos (with a lot of "METOO" comments):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txQZWfWFhlc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW37ZEj3Xus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT1nrdH4DYU

I'm using rather old setup with i5 2410M and gt520M for which I couldn't find any proof of existence of this bug, except the "pcie link power budget" fix which doesn't work. 

I reported it to nvidia "few" months ago but I'm forced to post it here because they seem to not care at all, I couldn't reproduce similiar behaviour in other browsers and I also belive that could cause a lot of weird bugs that no one could reproduce due to not meeting one of the criterias.

MAIN CRITERIA:

NVIDIA GPU must be in "POWER DOWN" state (do not confuse it with "IDLE" state which is way different)

It means that:
- No app can be running on nvidia gpu (even a calc.exe forces permanent "IDLE" state).
- No active 3D app, like games or benchmarks, can be running on nvidia gpu.
- No gpu monitoring software can be active (like gpu-z, gpu-shark, hwinfo, etc.), gpu monitoring in post FCU taskmanager somehow (driver 390.65 and earlier, in 390.77 it disappeared) is not the case here.
- No adapter (monitor) can be connected to nvidia gpu (in my case HDMI is hardwired to gt520M and D-SUB is connected to hd3000).
- Intel gpu have to be active (bios settings).
- Nvidia gpu have to be enabled in davice manager.
- Nvidia drivers have to be installed.
- After fresh driver install you need additional 2+ restarts until gpu is allowed to go into "POWER DOWN" sate.
- It must not be a driver that:
   a) Forces permanent "IDLE" state (As I remember all older win7 drivers forced by some EA games (planned obsolescence agreement ?) before I upgradet to win10).
   b) Is cycling between "POWER DOWN" and "IDLE" states making annoying fan spins.
   c) Forces permanent "IDLE" state after specific action, like connecting charger while laptop is in sleep/hibernation. 
   d) Idk what about drivers with (nonpaged pool) memory leaks and frequent BSODs but those should also be blacklisted.

What is worng with "IDLE" state in respect to "POWER DOWN":

In my configuration it actually doubles power consumption from 5.5-7W up to 14W. So instead of 5-6 hours of typical usage (without YT) and specified by manufacturer 9 hours in total idle (screen dimmed, wifi disabled, all background killed and no apps written in managed languages) my notebook drains battery within 3 hours and is getting hot even while reproducing previous idle configuration.
It also supresses all freezes except permanent ones.

Actual steps to reproduce outside FF (windows: 16299.125 (1709), nvidia: 390.77, FF58.0.2):

1) Permanent freezes: 
Too rare, and I can't even corelate it with absolutely anythig (happens even while actively using nvidia gpu).

I've got one nvddlkm bluescreen after updating driver to 390.77 and reproducing a lot of freezes on battery and connecting charger after (what I saw was, some sytem processes that were probably stuck into single threaded infinite loop)  
Didn't experienced permanent freeze on 390.77 yet.

2) random freezes like on the 3 above videos:
Mostly fixed in CU and FCU, still exists but too rare to corelate with anything.

3) freezes on specific actions:

   a) launching random apps - usually <40% chance, mostly triggered by warthunder launcher.
   b) Windows settings panel -> System -> Screen  (and doing like anything -> Screen -> anything -> Screen) - 100% chance of trigger, needs a few seconds of "cooldown" between triggering.

Actual steps to reproduce in FF (windows: 16299.125 (1709), nvidia: 390.77, FF58.0.2):

1) have a 20+ or even 40+ tab session
2) close firefox 
3) start firefox (startup setting set to open tabs from previous session)
4) and now loading a new page (direct link click, "open in new tab", or entering new address) have a chance to trigger a freeze, "cooldown" time is longer and sometimes it's reproducible only after few hours, or days (idk if this requires additional specific actions).
5) if you "reactivate" this 40+ tabs from previous session, there will be no more freezes. 



Actual results:

permanent freezes:
- no further hdd activity, screen is frozen and stays frozen instead of going sleep when closing screen cover.
- if any sound has been playing during freeze, it will continue playing in a well known "BRRRRR" loop.
- I had no BSOD since AU, and nvidia drivers released at this time.

freezes caused outside FF:
- Usually 0.5 second.
- Invisible to DPC/ISR latency monitors (this was a case for "pci-e link power budget" fix).
- If any sound was being played in firefox (soundcloud, youtube), there is 50% chance that the sound will get silent for that 0.5 second.
- If any sound was being played in anything except firefox (like edge) there is no chance to freeze that sound.
- Obs records a little longer freeze than it actually was and it looks more like stuttering rather than single shot freeze.
- Rarely I saw "windows error reporting" process on first freeze after fresh nvidia driver installation.

freezes caused by FF:
- Usually 0.5 second (can be longer during swapping 10+GB of memory leak).
- Invisible to DPC/ISR latency monitors (this was a case for "pci-e link power budget" fix).
- If any sound was being played in firefox (soundcloud, youtube), there is 100% chance that the sound will get silent for that 0.5 second (or a little longer with "BRRR" sound during swapping 10+GB of memory leak).
- If any sound was being played in anything except firefox (like edge) there is no chance to freeze that sound.



Expected results:

No freezes like when nvidia gpu is active.
Idk if blacklisting can fix anything.

Also, someone more equal should report it to nvidia or wherever it should be reported.

Comment 1

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Attachment: BSOD_022118-38109-01.dmp

Comment 2

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Forgot to mention that unchecking "use hardware acceleration, when available" doesn't change anything.

I also did some profiling and it looks that the freezes occurs right after process creation.
https://perfht.ml/2IokH3d

procedure was as follows:

1. open some pages + youtube playing something
2. pick YT tab and close ff
3. Start ff
4. optionally wait until YT page is fully rendered
5. go to other tab
6. freeze occurs usually when page is partially rendered (this one was without sound freeze)

Curently on 391.35 driver.

Comment 3

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Attachment: Firefox 2018-04-03 01.27 profile.sps.json.gz

Comment 4

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Already googled for NtUserDisplayConfigGetDeviceInfo and found similiar case in bug 1412977