MiniLED backlight local dimming stuck when playing HDR video or stutter in fullscreen game

Issues & Assistance
1

As what the title said, my mini-led backlight gets stuck when playing an HDR video or stutter in full screen games. Picture shows where the local dimming zones getting stuck even when exiting the application. Only way to reset the monitor is by turning it off and on again.

Monitor is connected via USB-C to DP cable to my laptop with an Nvidia GPU (RTX4050), the MUX switch is set to dGPU only.

I know HDR on Linux is in its early stages but this is the most consistent way I’ve been able to reproduce it. The problem looks the same when a full-screen game stutters (e.g screen showing a white menu on a black background and stutters → the miniled backlights gets stuck in the shape of the menu). Doesn’t happen on other fullscreen apps (browser, regular videos, regular desktop browsing, etc…). This has been happening for the entire duration I’ve had my monitor.

I am not sure if this issue stems from Nvidia Drivers, Linux, or the monitor itself (problem doesn’t occur on Windows) and I have no idea where I should start looking into.

  • Monitor: Redmi G Pro 27 Q
  • Distro: CachyOS (7.0.1-1-cachyos)
  • Nvidia Driver Version: 595.58.03
  • DE: KDE Plasma (Wayland)
  • VRR: Auto

IMG_20260430_182106924
IMG_20260430_1821069241920×1446 237 KB

2

What if we turned on the iGPU for experimental purposes, maybe it can help us diagnose some problems. For example, if we let the iGPU play an HDR video, and it works, we know it’s the NVIDIA driver.

Letting the video play on the iGPU is probably going to happen automatically if you don’t have the dGPU-only mode turned on.

3

iGPU/Optimus mode seems to be working fine with HDR videos. It’s very laggy everywhere but that seems like a problem for later.

4

It’s the NVIDIA driver then that is causing the issue. You can try a different NVIDIA driver

5

The monitor has been through over half a year’s worth of Nvidia driver updates. Older versions faces the same issue.

Currently I’m trying to find a way to reproduce it as consistently as possible because even HDR videos only triggers it sometimes. The only trend I found is it occurs when a big stutter happens & is in fullscreen. So far the only cases where it is triggered is:

  • HDR videos
  • Launching a game in fullscreen
    • This sometimes leaves the screen completely black as the local dimming zones are all stuck at 0.
  • Mid game