Adaptive Sync shows up in KDE for one monitor even though it's off in the OSD

Help
,
1

Hello,

I have two monitors:

  • LG 32GQ950 (32", VRR-capable)
  • LG 27GP95RP-B (27", VRR-capable)

Both monitors support Adaptive Sync with the following OSD options:

  • Extended (48–144Hz)
  • Basic (60–144Hz)
  • Off

I’m running Arch Linux with KDE Plasma 6 on Wayland, using KWin as the compositor.
My GPU is an NVIDIA RTX 5070 Ti, and I’ve tried both the nvidia-open and nvidia-open-beta drivers.

The issue:

When Adaptive Sync is turned off on both monitors via their OSD, and I reboot,
KDE Display Configuration still shows Adaptive Sync options for the 27" monitor (Always, Automatic, Never).
This should not happen — if the feature is disabled in the OSD, it shouldn’t appear in the settings.

Workaround behavior:

If I enable Adaptive Sync (Basic or Extended) and then turn it off again during the same session,
the Adaptive Sync option disappears from KDE Display Configuration — which is correct and expected.

Why I want Adaptive Sync off:

  • If set to Always, apps like Discord can cause the refresh rate to fluctuate
    (e.g., showing GIFs at low framerate), making the display feel sluggish, especially the mouse.
  • If set to Automatic or Never, I get screen flickering.
  • With Adaptive Sync completely disabled, everything works perfectly.

The real problem:

Whenever the 27" monitor wakes from sleep — either when powering on the system or returning from suspend —
Adaptive Sync options reappear in KDE Display Configuration, even though it’s disabled in the monitor OSD.
This does not happen with the 32" monitor, which reports its state correctly.

What I’ve tried:

  • Different Linux distributions
  • Swapped cables and ports, including HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort
  • Reinstalled Arch and KDE multiple times
  • Disabled monitor features like Deep Sleep, Auto Switch, etc.

My question:

Why does my 27" monitor report Adaptive Sync support to KDE after waking from sleep,
even when it is disabled via the OSD?

Why does the 32" monitor behave correctly in this regard, but not the 27"?

Logs I can provide (let me know if you need others, and this is with Adaptive Sync fully disabled and not showing on KDE):

journalctl -b 
[cardaria@lepidium ~]$ journalctl -b
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: Linux version 6
.14.6-arch1-1 (linux@archlinux) (gcc (GCC) 15.1.1 20250425, GNU ld (GNU 
Binutils) 2.44.0) #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri, 09 May 2025 17:36:18 +0000

May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-linux
 root=UUID=9cd7f302-f0b3-450b-95b9-b560522f58a0 rw loglevel=3 quiet spla
sh nvidia-drm.modeset=1 nvidia-drm.fbdev=1
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: x86/split lock detection: #DB: warning 
on user-space bus_locks
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x00
0000000009ffff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000000a0000-0x00
000000000fffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000000100000-0x00
00000009afefff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000009aff000-0x00
00000009ffffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000000a000000-0x00
0000000a1fffff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000000a200000-0x00
0000000a21dfff] ACPI NVS
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000000a21e000-0x00
0000000affffff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000000b000000-0x00
0000000b020fff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000000b021000-0x00
00000088010fff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000088011000-0x00
0000008e010fff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000008e011000-0x00
0000008e27efff] ACPI data
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000008e27f000-0x00
0000009027efff] ACPI NVS
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000009027f000-0x00
000000983fefff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000983ff000-0x00
00000099ff6fff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000099ff7000-0x00
00000099ffbfff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000099ffc000-0x00
00000099ffffff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000009a000000-0x00
0000009bffffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000009d7f3000-0x00
0000009fffffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000e0000000-0x00
000000efffffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000f7000000-0x00
000000ffffffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000100000000-0x00
0000085de7ffff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000085eec0000-0x00
000008801fffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000fd00000000-0x00
0000ffffffffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: The simpledrm driver will not be probed
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: NX (Execute Disable) protection: active
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: APIC: Static calls initialized
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: e820: u
pdate [mem 0x78e5f018-0x78e86a57] usable ==> usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: e820: u
pdate [mem 0x8258f018-0x8259d057] usable ==> usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: e820: u
pdate [mem 0x82584018-0x8258ee57] usable ==> usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: extended physical RAM map:
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: reserve setup_data: [mem 0x000000000000
0000-0x000000000009ffff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: reserve setup_data: [mem 0x00000000000a
0000-0x00000000000fffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: reserve setup_data: [mem 0x000000000010
0000-0x0000000009afefff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: reserve setup_data: [mem 0x0000000009af
f000-0x0000000009ffffff] reserved
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: reserve setup_data: [mem 0x000000000a00
0000-0x000000000a1fffff] usable
May 21 18:13:48 lepidium kernel: reserve setup_data: [mem 0x000000000a20
0000-0x000000000a21dfff] ACPI NVS
nvidia-smi 
[cardaria@lepidium ~]$ nvidia-smi
Wed May 21 19:25:37 2025       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.144                Driver Version: 570.144        CUDA Version: 12.8     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti     Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| 32%   31C    P0             37W /  300W |    1623MiB /  16303MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
                                                                                         
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A             773      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                            68MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A             830      G   /usr/bin/kwin_wayland                    79MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A             927      G   /usr/bin/Xwayland                         4MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A             964      G   /usr/bin/ksmserver                        3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A             966      G   /usr/bin/kded6                            3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A             976      G   /usr/bin/plasmashell                    375MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1004      G   /usr/bin/kaccess                          3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1006      G   ...it-kde-authentication-agent-1          3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1008      G   /usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal-kde           3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1270      G   /usr/lib/firefox/firefox                529MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1395      G   /opt/discord/Discord                    157MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1734      G   /usr/bin/kwalletd6                        3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1780      G   /usr/bin/ksecretd                         3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            4749      G   /usr/bin/krunner                         12MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            5824      G   /usr/lib/baloorunner                      3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            9358      G   /usr/bin/konsole                          3MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
env | grep WAYLAND 
[cardaria@lepidium ~]$ env | grep WAYLAND
WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-0
QT_WAYLAND_RECONNECT=1
kscreen-doctor -o 
[cardaria@lepidium ~]$ kscreen-doctor -o
Output: 1 DP-1
        enabled
        connected
        priority 2
        DisplayPort
        Modes:  1:3840x2160@144*!  2:3840x2160@95  3:3840x2160@60  4:2560x1440@144  5:1920x1080@144  6:1920x1080@120  7:1920x1080@60  8:1920x1080@60  9:1280x1024@75  10:1280x720@60  11:1024x768@60  12:800x600@60  13:720x480@60  14:640x480@60  15:640x480@60 
        Geometry: 0,0 1440x2560
        Scale: 1.5
        Rotation: 8
        Overscan: 0
        Vrr: incapable
        RgbRange: unknown
        HDR: disabled
        Wide Color Gamut: disabled
        ICC profile: none
        Color profile source: sRGB
        Color power preference: prefer efficiency and performance
        Brightness control: supported, set to 7% and dimming to 100%
Output: 2 DP-2
        enabled
        connected
        priority 1
        DisplayPort
        Modes:  16:3840x2160@144*!  17:3840x2160@95  18:3840x2160@60  19:2560x1440@144  20:1920x1080@144  21:1920x1080@60  22:1920x1080@60  23:1280x1024@75  24:1280x720@60  25:1024x768@60  26:800x600@60  27:720x480@60  28:640x480@60  29:640x480@60  30:640x480@60 
        Geometry: 1440,701 3072x1728
        Scale: 1.25
        Rotation: 1
        Overscan: 0
        Vrr: incapable
        RgbRange: unknown
        HDR: disabled
        Wide Color Gamut: disabled
        ICC profile: none
        Color profile source: sRGB
        Color power preference: prefer efficiency and performance
        Brightness control: unsupported

Thanks in advance for any insight or troubleshooting ideas.

1 Like
2

Hello and welcome to the KDE community!

Would be interesting if either of the screens has the same issue if plugged in by itself or if the issue is only seen when two or more screens are connected (multi screen issues have been seen on GPUs). Also I would try if the same thing happens in Gnome or not.

You write:

If I enable Adaptive Sync (Basic or Extended) and then turn it off again during the same session

That was using the OSD or via KDE Settings? It’s not elegant, but one could concieve making a workaround that way, like an script to disable and enable this running in autostart. KDE has pretty good command line support so I guess there may be a way.

If you did that via OSD, there’s ddcutil (cli tool) that can change pretty much anything you can change via OSD. I used to use that for creating basically “night mode” for my screens.

Caveat: checked it on my system, the adaptive sync thing is hidden in the many entries of “Manufacturer specific feature”, so I don’t know how to find out easily what the actual entry is that you would need to change.

There’s this guy that’s toggling his G-Sync with ddcutil but if I run ddcutil capabilities --display 1 on my system, I got 2x entries of “Manufacturer specific feature” both having “Unsupported feature code” so I guess I’m out of luck.

Have you looked into how you can get rid of the screen flickering?

3

Hello Lenzoid and thank you,

The problem does not appear to happen when I disable my main monitor.

That was using the OSD or via KDE Settings?

It was using the OSD settings.

I tried the ddcutil method, but I found no clear entries for VRR, or Adaptive Sync even tested some entries that had 3 options but to no avail.

What I did try to do was to export the EDID of my monitor after setting Adaptive Sync from Extended to Off (where I want it), and ran this EDID at boot. This actually made the option disappear from the KDE Display Configuration menu, even after restarting the monitor. But, it did not fix the flickering. So I actually have to still go ahead and Enable, and then Disable Adaptive Sync in the OSD for the flickering to disappear.

I have tried some stuff for the flickering, but to no avail. It’s like a really random/occasional flickering, that affects the lower third of my monitors, it’s utterly random. Sometimes I can wait for up to minutes for a flicker to appear, and sometimes it just goes crazy. It’s like a flicker that appears really fast and then disappears, grey colored. I don’t have any clue on what is causing the flickers, but they do disappear if only one monitor is connected, or if I lower the refresh rate. I don’t understand why I have to do that though, they are connected to a good GPU via fresh DP cables, and set to 1.4 with DSC. Bandwith should be more than enough.

I even just now updated to the beta version of KDE (6.4) but I see no differences.

4

Update:

I have installed GNOME for now where I don’t have this problem as Adaptive Sync doesn’t seem to be supported there, as I can’t stand these issues and don’t really have the time to tinker currently. I will try out KDE once again sometime in the future with the hopes that such bugs are cleared out.

Thanks for the help anyways.

How should I proceed with the post? Marking it as [Solved] doesn’t seem right. What are my options?

5

Man… I sympathize because I also own one screen (no variable refresh rate support) that has this grey “flickers” some random time into the uptime. The issue is specific to Nvidia + Linux drivers though, because the same thing doesn’t happen if it’s connected to system with amdgpu.

You can just keep the thread open. We’ll keep our eyes open for potential solutions or info about this. I’m hearing a lot of sarcastic remarks about Nvidia Linux in the Linux desktop world so I believe we’re not the only ones affected. :wink:

6

@cardaria does this solve your flickering issues?