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#1 2020-10-03 17:46:19

VDmvKcW9JamBSir5fNfehqpG
Member
From: Earth
Registered: 2019-12-30
Posts: 59

Is there a way to restart my GPU but not my X server?

My laptop has an issue where sometimes all video output will freeze with a bunch of artifacts on the screens. Switching between VTs and attempting to kill the X server does not work and the screen just remains where it was. As far as I can tell, it's a hardware issue because it's slowly becoming more frequent, can be triggered or made worse by moving the laptop, and did not start following an update. Plus, I've heard that nvidia GPUs from around 2010 are unreliable, and that is what I have. The only way I've found to fix it is to reboot the entire laptop. I started having to reboot it two or three times to get it to work because the first and sometimes second time, it shuts down supposedly due to overheating despite being well below the thermal trip point.

Obviously, having to make two or three attempts to reboot my laptop and then reopen all of my applications and put them back on the appropriate workspaces is quite annoying and time consuming. However, I've noticed that I can still reboot using REISUB, which suggests that my GPU bugging out does not bring down the entire system. Searches for how to restart my GPU only seem to turn out the solution of switching to a VT, killing my x server, unloading and reloading the driver module, then restarting my x server.

However, that solution is not adequate. It doesn't do anything, and even if it did work it would still result in my applications being terminated, which defeats the purpose of trying to avoid rebooting. What I want is to set up a key binding to completely power down my GPU and then power it back on, without killing the X server. Can this be done, or am I stuck rebooting my computer?

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#2 2020-10-04 11:41:42

Lone_Wolf
Member
From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 11,868

Re: Is there a way to restart my GPU but not my X server?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Power_management/Suspend_and_hibernate wrote:

There are multiple low level interfaces (backends) providing basic functionality, and some high level interfaces providing tweaks to handle problematic hardware drivers/kernel modules (e.g. video card re-initialization).

Try configuring suspend / hibernate so it will re-start the videocard, but leave other things as they are.


Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.


(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

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#3 2020-10-04 16:47:59

VDmvKcW9JamBSir5fNfehqpG
Member
From: Earth
Registered: 2019-12-30
Posts: 59

Re: Is there a way to restart my GPU but not my X server?

The dying GPU makes it so that waking from suspend only works about 60% of the time. However, I think using hibernate is a good idea, as it will involve power cycling the computer. I'll use systemd logind to bind my power button to hibernate, and set up KDE connect to let my phone remotely hibernate my computer.

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