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Title: Dell G15 5520 - Abnormal System Power Draw with Disabled NVIDIA GPU - BIOS 1.30.0 / 1.29.0
I'm experiencing an unusual power management issue with my Dell G15 5520 where the system power consumption is higher when the NVIDIA GPU is disabled compared to when it's running. This issue persists with BIOS version 1.30.0. in Arch as well as windows
Power consumption observations:
- When NVIDIA GPU is disabled (D3cold state): System draws 40+ W from battery
- When NVIDIA GPU is running (D3hot state): System draws ~20W total, with GPU using ~10W
- Previously (before firmware update): System drew only ~10W with disabled GPU
Interesting behavior with nvtop:
- When launching nvtop, for the first 3 seconds the power draw shows 30W
- After 3 seconds, power management kicks in and drops to 10W
- Initial clocks: GPU: 1702MHz, Memory: 7001MHz
- After power management: GPU: 210MHz, Memory: 405MHz
This issue began after a Windows firmware update. I spent nearly a month troubleshooting my Arch configuration before realizing it was likely a firmware-level issue. The behavior suggests a power management problem at the firmware level, as the system actually uses less power when the GPU is active and properly power-managed than when it's supposedly disabled.
i have tried nvidia-prime , power-profile , envycontrol and manual power control stuff and i can confim nvidia gpu does report d3cold with
cat /sys/class/drm/card*/device/power_state and cat /sys/bus/pci/<nvidia-gpu-pci>/power_state
i have even used other distribution, same issue,
I want to ask is there is any workaround to this problem in arch configuration so that nvidia-gpu can work properly ?
Bios downgrade pre-1.29.0 is blocked by dell even tho i enabled bios downgrade.
i would be very grateful for any help,tnx.
System details:
- Model: Dell G15 5520
- BIOS Version: 1.30.0
- OS: Arch Linux
- Kernel:6.12.9-arch1-1
-NVIDIA Driver: nvidia-open 565.77-11
-CPU: 12th Gen Intel i7-12650H (16) @ 4.600GHz
-iGPU:GPU: Intel Alder Lake-P GT1 [UHD Graphics]
-dGPU: Nvidia RTX-3060 (ampere)
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