[Powertop] Managing an nVidia G86 [Quadro NVS 140M]

[Powertop] Managing an nVidia G86 [Quadro NVS 140M]

[sirquijote]

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Hi,

Dell Latitude D830; Debian 7 "Wheezy" 64-bit running as a CLI; PowerTOP
2.0 (latest version available for Debian's Stable branch)

I use this laptop for some basic home server duties, and the screen is off
most of the time through the use of the "vbetool dpms off" command. 
However, my GPU still displays as 100% usage at all times in PowerTOP's
Device Stats tab, even with all Tunables set to "Good".

I occasionally need to directly access the laptop using its built-in
keyboard, say if I screw up my SSH connection somehow, and during boot
when I need to enter some LUKS passwords, so the display needs to be
accessible at those times.  Other than that, the display is largely
superfluous, and is switched off 47 out of 48 hours.

Is there anything I can do to minimise the GPU's power draw during its 47
idle hours?

Re: [Powertop] Managing an nVidia G86 [Quadro NVS 140M]

[Kok, Auke-jan H]

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On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 12:59 AM,  <sirquijote(a)lavabit.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Dell Latitude D830; Debian 7 "Wheezy" 64-bit running as a CLI; PowerTOP
> 2.0 (latest version available for Debian's Stable branch)
>
> I use this laptop for some basic home server duties, and the screen is off
> most of the time through the use of the "vbetool dpms off" command.
> However, my GPU still displays as 100% usage at all times in PowerTOP's
> Device Stats tab, even with all Tunables set to "Good".
>
> I occasionally need to directly access the laptop using its built-in
> keyboard, say if I screw up my SSH connection somehow, and during boot
> when I need to enter some LUKS passwords, so the display needs to be
> accessible at those times.  Other than that, the display is largely
> superfluous, and is switched off 47 out of 48 hours.
>
> Is there anything I can do to minimise the GPU's power draw during its 47
> idle hours?

Other than "purchase full hardware specs" and "learn how to kernel program"? :^)

Joking aside, you could attempt to juggle the tunables in powertop, or
consulting the video adapter driver hardware configuration options,
but I have the suspicion that this model is too old to support most of
the features that will make it actually save significant power. Then
there is the likeliness that you are using a proprietary driver blob
from a vendor as well.

At least you can turn the panel off, which is a ton of power (watts,
several of them, like 7-10W for most panels), so you at least are
making a difference there.

Cheers,

Auke

Re: [Powertop] Managing an nVidia G86 [Quadro NVS 140M]

[sqlists]

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OP here. Well, bang went my email provider.

On 7 Aug 2013, at 00:25, "Kok, Auke-jan H" <auke-jan.h.kok(a)intel.com> wrote:
>there is the likeliness that you are using a proprietary driver blob
>from a vendor as well.
I'm using the "nouveau" driver.  I have seen what appears to be a proprietary driver, but it seems to be linked to the X11 windowing system so I wasn't sure if it was applicable to me, seeing as I don't even have a GUI installed.  If I find it again should I install it?

Re: [Powertop] Managing an nVidia G86 [Quadro NVS 140M]

[Kok, Auke-jan H]

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On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 6:31 PM,  <sqlists(a)posteo.co.uk> wrote:
> OP here. Well, bang went my email provider.

yeah, we heard about that... sucks  o_O

> On 7 Aug 2013, at 00:25, "Kok, Auke-jan H" <auke-jan.h.kok(a)intel.com> wrote:
>>there is the likeliness that you are using a proprietary driver blob
>>from a vendor as well.
>
> I'm using the "nouveau" driver.  I have seen what appears to be a proprietary driver, but it seems to be linked to the X11 windowing system so I wasn't sure if it was applicable to me, seeing as I don't even have a GUI installed.  If I find it again should I install it?

so nouveau is open source (good!) but the driver is relatively
immature and hardware acceleration performance seems to be a priority
(shiny fast pixels) and not power savings (which, believe it or not,
is often more "protected" than anything else).

Your system may even have both the open source nouveau driver and the
closed source blob as well, depending on the distribution used....

I'd inquire/reasearch with the nouveau project to see if they are
working on power savings features (downclocking, shutting down cores
etc.) that they are working on. Other people on this list may know,
but this is obviously a very specific topic that the nouveau team
should know the status of.

Cheers,

Auke