Framework 13 screen won't displays grey #9D9FA0 colour, shows as bright green

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  • Which OS (Operating System)?
    Windows 11 Pro 10.0.22631 Build 22631

  • Which release of your OS (Operating System / Windows 10, 11)? (if you are having a Linux related issue, please create your thread under the Linux subcategory)
    Windows 11 Pro 10.0.22631 Build 22631

  • Which Framework laptop (11th, 12th or 13th generation Framework laptop, Chromebook or Framework Laptop 16) are you asking for support with?
    13" Framework laptop, 13th Gen Intel Core

I’ve had this issue since I purchased my framework laptop in July 2023, but haven’t got around to reporting it as it’s only mildly annoying.

The inbuilt display for the laptop seems to have some issue with showing the hex colour #9D9FAO on the screen, which should be a kind of cloud-grey, but is actually displayed as quite a bright green colour. This is the only hex colour I’ve managed to identify, but others may be affected too.

I’ve uploaded a picture of what the image looks like on the screen vs the original (webp) image.

with-artifacts
with-artifacts1708×744 45.9 KB

original
original2560×1426 51.3 KB

I can only assume this is some sort of driver issue. All display drivers are up to date.

Intel Arc driver version 32.0.101.5972 is what’s current installed.

Any ideas?
Thanks

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Two thoughts: BIOS up to date?

And try removing and re-seating your display cable?

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Isn’t there an automatic brightness and color adjust feature in Windows 11 which tends to do this?

I’ll remove or edit this post if I or others find it.

Adaptive brightness?

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I know this is the default-to-Windows subforum, but have you considered grabbing a USB and dropping Ubuntu 24.04 on it? If you can boot the live desktop, bring up your picture, and it looks correct, you know it’s not hardware, it’s software. If it looks the same, you’ll know it’s not software, it’s hardware. No need to install or anything.

3 Likes
5

That’s a good idea that will probably work. But it’s not impossible that Ubuntu will configure the hardware differently so that a hardware problem is hidden.

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I don’t think that can mess with just one particular colour and not any others.

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No diagnostic is perfect, but you take the simple 50/50s early on to narrow the scope.

1 Like
8

So the issue isn’t present when using an external display?
Can you tell, does it affect both video playback and static picture display?

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Thanks for the replies all.

I did as suggested and tried an Ubuntu live CD and viewing the image again it appears correctly, without green artefacts. Picture here.

0b38296e-626e-45bf-ab48-8ddf6e41b93a
0b38296e-626e-45bf-ab48-8ddf6e41b93a1454×862 61 KB

So it looks like it could be a Windows 11/driver issue perhaps?

I haven’t tried to re-seat the display cable, as presumably proving it works on Ubuntu has ruled out a hardware issue?

And no, the issue is not present on external displays using the USB-C module with a USB-C to HDMI cable. It only shows on the actual laptop display.

Also the green artefacts are seen on both static images and moving video.

I’ll have a look into updating the bios next.

2 Likes
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It also affects the colors by (badly) trying to present the ideal color based on illumination and panel power saving.

Maybe that’s not the name of the setting, but I’ve seen that lurid green color before.

2 Likes
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May be related to HDR, chroma subsampling/pixel format. Haven’t had a chance to work with more modern intel drivers so IDK how their color configuration is set up, but comparable AMD shows Color Depth (6/8/10bpc) and Pixel Format (RGB 4:4:4, YCbCr 4:4:4, YCbCr 4:2:2, etc). Perhaps like this intel support page?

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Me being pedantic:
If it looks the same, you still won’t “know”…it just changes the confidence level of whether it’s ‘more likely’ to be one or the other. (e.g. shared code / logic scneario…same intel buggy developer)

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Okay, maybe it’s a bug in that annoying power save (or whatever it’s supposed to achieve) feature.

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Pedantic but correct. Like I said earlier, you take tests early on that don’t get you a root cause, but at least let you rule out lots of things with some confidence.

Seeing no green on externals or under a different OS makes me lean towards the Intel drivers doing something funky. There are tons of usually-great but sometimes-painful tiny features in Intel iGPUs, usually oriented towards power-saving.

If it was me, I’d rip out all display-related drivers, scour the system driver store, get the official FW-provided driver and lay that in cleanly, see if the issue persists. If not, then start doing any changes/updates, until it shows up, then scrutinize the last one installed.

From previous experience, using something like DDU to rip out all graphics drivers and install them clean often (not always, but often) squashes weird little bugs like this.