Re: XFCE unusably slow when only on laptop screen

Ben Hutton wrote:
> Is anyone able to help?
> 
> On further investigation it appears the latest drm updates do not work 
> well with a hybrid mode laptop. It makes xfce unusable using the intel 
> GPU. While I have managed to get KDE working it’s also slow (I switch 
> back to XFCE from KDE because of bad performance). Unfortunately while I 
> managed to compile the previous version of the drivers and get xfce 
> working, now it’s broken suspend mode. Basically my laptop is now 
> unusable and I’ve had to switch to my MacBook until I can find a 
> resolution.
> 
Chances are the drm updates (ie kernel-side) are less of the problem 
than the userspace side, particularly mesa having issues. Assuming you 
are using X, will need to compare Xorg.logs between external monitor 
connected or not.

Note that mesa is the userspace side for Intel, x11/nvidia-driver is the 
userspace side for Nvidia. For Nvidia, x11/nvidia-driver and 
x11/nvidia-kmod (kernel side) have to match. Additionally, you may want 
to check if you have or need the appropriate graphics/nvidia-drm-kmod.
> 
> 
>> On 30 Dec 2025, at 10:35 pm, Ben Hutton <ben@benhutton.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have an odd problem since doing a pkg upgrade earlier today. Since 
>> I've done that my laptop is painfull slow in XFCE but only when using 
>> the laptop without external displays. As soon as I plug in an external 
>> display it runs at normal performance. After disconnecting the 
>> external display it takes 1-2 seconds to respond to general typing and 
>> also task switching. Dragging windows around is also painfully slow. 
>> If I switch to a tty it is performant again as well.
>>
>> Note this on a Thinkpad P1 Gen3 running hybrid graphics using both 
>> Intel and Nvidia. From memory when using external screens it switches 
>> to the NVidia GPU and uses the Intel when no external displays are 
>> attached (at least that's my understanding).
>>
It sounds like your hybrid graphics/Optimus setup has the Nvidia card 
configured with direct HDMI connection in addition to the headless mode 
(ie DMA-BUF, rendering on Nvidia but copying the output directly to the 
Intel for display). My W550s, a few generations back, only does headless.

-- 
Charlie Li
...nope, still don't have an exit line.