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#1 2018-07-17 02:47:01

EruIluvatar
Member
Registered: 2018-06-20
Posts: 8

Can't go lower than PC6 when running a desktop environment

Hi all,

I've currently got my XPS 9560 laptop running Arch, and all is running well. The only thing I've noticed is that it doesn't seem to go any lower than the PC6 state when running a desktop environment (have tested with Gnome and LXDE).

Is this to be expected? Currently it spends around 65% of the time in PC6, but doesn't hit any of the other states. When running without a desktop environment, it hits PC8.

Any help is appreciated!

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#2 2018-07-17 12:21:00

radiomike
Member
Registered: 2013-12-19
Posts: 73

Re: Can't go lower than PC6 when running a desktop environment

It's not surprising that you get lower states when not running a desktop environment as there is extra load and more background processes running. However I don't think there's any reason you shouldn't see lower when your machine is idle. I'm seeing pc7 about 15% of the time with in gnome on an i7 kabylake-r HP. That said, there's a lot of factors which may prevent this.

Some things to look at.

Setting CPU governor to powersave.
setting energy performance preference to  power or balance_power
setting x86_energy_perf policy try power. You may need to install x86_energy_perf_policy separately.

Personally I use tlp to configure these, but there's plenty of other ways to do this. They won't guarantee you seeing lower power states, but will increase the likelihood of it.

Last edited by radiomike (2018-07-17 12:21:45)

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#3 2018-07-20 05:33:52

EruIluvatar
Member
Registered: 2018-06-20
Posts: 8

Re: Can't go lower than PC6 when running a desktop environment

Yeah I did take that into account, but as you said, you'd expect that you at least get into PC7.

I believe my CPU governor is already set to powersave, but I'll double check this.

I'll play around with the other settings you've described in TLP and see if it makes a difference, thanks!

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#4 2018-07-24 01:16:07

EruIluvatar
Member
Registered: 2018-06-20
Posts: 8

Re: Can't go lower than PC6 when running a desktop environment

OK implementing those changes still leaves me with the same issue - as soon as I've got the desktop environment up it refuses to go any lower than PC6. Should I just put this down to the laptop being more 'chatty' with a DE up, hence the inability of the processor to get into deeper sleep states?

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