Nvidia dGPU won't turn to suspended mode when idle

ryuugo_ogura · 2025-01-01 07:34:46

Hello guys, I just installed Arch a few days ago. I am dual booting with Windows, and the very first linux distro i look is Arch Linux.

My Acer laptop has Intel core i3 1115G6 and NVIDIA MX 350 discrete GPU. Short story, i succeeded installing arch linux into my Acer laptop. Configuring things such as customizing desktop to my liking, until I started to install nvidia driver. I read the wiki from NVIDIA page to Nvidia Optimus and then PRIME. Also i read nvidia manual here about Prime Render Offload , even though i didn't understand all of them.

For what i've read is that prime render offload will make screen rendered by iGPU and nvidia dGPU will go on off state and only will be used when needed. But my nvidia gpu seems to always on.

when i querying my GPU runtime status it shows active, even suspended time is always 0.

Here is my nvidia-smi output:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 565.77                 Driver Version: 565.77         CUDA Version: 12.7     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce MX350           On  |   00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   48C    P8             N/A /   20W |       5MiB /   2048MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
                                                                                         
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                              GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A       701      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                                   4MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I mean, what exactly is /usr/lib/Xorg ?
I used KDE Plasma on wayland session, so i don't know why Xorg is running (or should it be?) anyway, i tried on X11 session and this same thing still there too.

I also have tried to turn RTD3 on too. But silly me, turns out that my device is not supported, so i deleted all configuration files i had created.

I've searched several posts about discrete gpu not turning off when idle. But almost all of them (maybe not all) solve it by enabling RTD3 which my device doesn't support. No posts discuss more about /usr/lib/Xorg (or I'm not diving deep enough).

I tried several things, like creating xorg.conf then seeing it doesn't work and ended up deleting it again.

Should I give up because my device is old? Or should I use a third party software that handles this (like envycontrol or optimus-manager)?

That's my problem, I apologize in advance for my bad and inadequate English.
Anyway here is my this is my Xorg log (as it seems many are listing it): Pastebin - Xorg log

Edit: I probably should mention that i use TLP for managing my battery life

Last edited by ryuugo_ogura (2025-01-01 07:37:27)

seth · 2025-01-01 17:10:43

Xorg is your display server - the thing that makes your monitor show colors - its assignment is normal for the regular prime setup.

Do not query the GPU w/ nvidia-smi, it will inherently wake it; but as you figured, the pascal chip isn't eligible for rtd3 anyway and P8 is likely as low as it gets.
You should™ be able to see a difference (in nvidia-smi) when running "prime-run superturboturkeypuncher³" (prime-run being a simple wrapper script from the nvidia-prime package and superturboturkeypuncher³ you can google yourself

ryuugo_ogura · 2025-01-02 01:43:09

Hello seth, thanks for the reply. is it not possible if I make Xorg display server run on iGPU only and not on nvidia? Or should I leave it as it is?

I'm afraid it will impact my hardware if my nvidia always turned on, and I'm having issue where my battery is draining very quickly because of this.

seth · 2025-01-02 09:14:43

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA … phics_only
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA … e_graphics - bumblebee and optimus-manager allow you to dynamically deactivate the GPU, but you'll have to restart X11 or effectively use a nested X11 server to invoke it (which is either annoying because you restart your GUI session and could almost just as much reboot or comes at some performance inhibiting overhead)

I'm having issue where my battery is draining very quickly because of this

Sure?
Have you checked powertop to get an idea where the battery goes? Or is this just anxiety of future events?
The GPU should™ not consume a lot of power while it's not in active use.

ryuugo_ogura · 2025-01-02 09:46:00

Oh yeah, you're right.... Thank you seth, for answering my dumb question

Arch Linux

#1 2025-01-01 07:34:46

Nvidia dGPU won't turn to suspended mode when idle

#2 2025-01-01 17:10:43

Re: Nvidia dGPU won't turn to suspended mode when idle

#3 2025-01-02 01:43:09

Re: Nvidia dGPU won't turn to suspended mode when idle

#4 2025-01-02 09:14:43

Re: Nvidia dGPU won't turn to suspended mode when idle

#5 2025-01-02 09:46:00

Re: Nvidia dGPU won't turn to suspended mode when idle

Board footer