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#1 2011-03-18 23:22:30
- prol
- Member
- Registered: 2008-03-27
- Posts: 75
Why is power consumption high in virtual console/terminal ?
Hey,
I am using 32bit arch with stock kernel, with laptop-mode-tools and the "nvidia" driver on my macbook pro 5,5 . When I'm using X with dwm, power consumption according to powertop is around 8.4 W on idle and compared to just a tty (hope i'm using the right terminology here), it jumps to around 16W, I thought it would be the opposite. Ive tried using fgetty since its a lighter terminal but that doesnt make a difference. Any ideas?
Last edited by prol (2011-03-18 23:23:00)
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#2 2011-03-18 23:33:30
- TigTex
- Member
- From: Portugal
- Registered: 2008-06-19
- Posts: 301
Re: Why is power consumption high in virtual console/terminal ?
Without having an active X session, your nvidia gpu will run at full speed instead of throttling down to 2D clocks. That generates more heat and power consumption. I don't think there's a way to solve that without having to start X (for now)
.::. TigTex @ Portugal .::.
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#3 2011-03-19 03:10:20
- thestinger
- Package Maintainer (PM)
- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 2010-01-23
- Posts: 478
Re: Why is power consumption high in virtual console/terminal ?
you could try using nvclock to change the performance profile to the lower clockspeeds (not sure it will work without X, I don't use an nvidia card with the blob atm)
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#4 2011-03-22 00:25:39
- prol
- Member
- Registered: 2008-03-27
- Posts: 75
Re: Why is power consumption high in virtual console/terminal ?
Apologize for the late reply. I can't seem to use nvclock because the coolbits option for overclocking can only be set in xorg. I dont know how to set in modprobe.conf. Also, one more reason is that the nvidia driver doesnt have a framebuffer driver like nouveau, instead nvidia uses vesafb, which is why I think the power consumption is high.
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#5 2011-03-22 21:29:32
- admiralspark
- Member
- From: Alaska, USA
- Registered: 2011-01-07
- Posts: 87
Re: Why is power consumption high in virtual console/terminal ?
Hey,
I don't know if this is helpful or not (I'm not familiar with the newer nvidia drivers), but there should be command line utilities that allow you to change the gpu power profile. I seem to remember Gentoo had an interesting article on this, if I find it I'll drop it here.
Maybe review this? http://linux.aldeby.org/nvidia-powermiz … aving.html
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