Nvidia card not working properly?

Mikeltxo15 · 2025-03-09 07:43:24

Hi, after many hours of debugging i was finally able to properly install and configure the nvidia driver.
However, when i went to test a few games on it, they worked the same as before, or worse even.
When i ran nvidia-smi, it shows the Xorg process is loaded, but the GPU is off and not drawing power. Is this a reporting error of the software? Or is the GPU not working properly?

nvidia-smi
Sun Mar  9 04:22:02 2025       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.124.04             Driver Version: 570.124.04     CUDA Version: 12.8     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| 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 MX130           Off |   00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   48C    P0            N/A  /  200W |     251MiB /   2048MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
                                                                                         
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A             586      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                           172MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A             768      G   xfwm4                                     1MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            6201      G   ...79a2d9f41e7ba42880b872dc17265         72MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

lspci -k -d ::03xx
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 620 (rev 07)
	Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 10d1
	Kernel driver in use: i915
	Kernel modules: i915
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM108M [GeForce MX130] (rev a2)
	Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 10d1
	Kernel driver in use: nvidia
	Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia

Neither the Xorg log or the journal report anything amiss that i can see.
ndivia-settings seems to detect the GPU normally

I installed the driver following the arch wiki. It is a Maxwell card, so the nvidia package should be the correct one. Also installed nvidia-utils, optimus-manager, lightdm and configured nvidia using nvidia-xconfig and optimus by following the wiki.

Also, if it helps somebody that is trying to make nvidia work in a laptop without success, optimus-manager or some alternative is needed to manage both GPUs, and the instructions in the wiki for those who don't use a dm are...misleading. Modifying .xinitrc won't have any effect if your DE doesn't load it (as is apparently the case with XFCE4. After installing lightdm and configuring it for optimus it started working).

Thanks in advance

seth · 2025-03-09 08:36:02

Also installed nvidia-utils, optimus-manager, lightdm and configured nvidia using nvidia-xconfig and optimus by following the wiki.

Probably not, because then your GUI won't work as the GPU is a mere 3D accelerator and cannot drive outputs.
Get rid of OM, remove any xorg.conf you generated, intall nvidia-prime and try

prime-run superturboturkeypuncher³

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PRIME

Mikeltxo15 · 2025-03-10 00:43:14

After uninstalling OM and rebooting, Xorg starts but it never shows an image. The last frame before starting stays frozen in place. If i change to a different tty, it works normally, and after going back to tty1, it shows the last frame of tty2. This is the same behavior i had before i installed OM, when i only had the nvidia driver installed.
However, i did try to run the same games as before using prime-run before i restarted, and they showed the same behavior as with OM. Largely the same as when i was just using the integrated Intel GPU, except for one game which shows a black screen.
I did run nvidia-smi after launching them, and they are loaded in VRAM, and the GPU heats up a bit. So i guess nvidia-smi is lying and the GPU is powered on after all. It's just not having a significant improvement in performance, and the nvidia driver adds many bugs to the mix. I might just go back to using the Intel GPU, although i want to try a few more games before. Having 2 extra GB of memory should help with some of them. Although i wonder if that Vram can be accesed by the intel GPU, and i have been using it already without my knowledge. I'll do some experiments and report back.

seth · 2025-03-10 08:06:44

Did you remove residual xorg config files created by you or OM?

ls -R /{etc,usr/share}/X11/xorg.conf*

Please post your Xorg log, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General
Also

glxinfo -B; prime-run glxinfo -B

Mikeltxo15 · 2025-03-10 23:22:19

I did remove the files i modified. I'll try it again, this time just deleting everything and reinstalling Xorg and the drivers.
However, after rereading the Prime page, i saw this line:

ArchWiki wrote:

The following command can be used to check current [1] power state of each GPU:
$ cat /sys/class/drm/card*/device/power_state

After executing said command, this is the output.

cat /sys/class/drm/card*/device/power_state
D0
D0

According to the documentation (PCI Power Management), this corresponds to the fully powered on state

The PCI PM Spec defines 4 operating states for devices (D0-D3) and for buses (B0-B3). The higher the number, the less power is drawn by the device or bus in that state. However, the higher the number, the longer the latency for the device or bus to return to the full-power state (D0 or B0, respectively).

So i guess nvidia-smi IS lying after all, and the GPU is on and fully powered.

Mikeltxo15 · 2025-03-11 00:27:11

Ok, i tried some native games. These run better, they are able to access the VRAM from the nvidia GPU, and thus they are not using as much RAM as before, when the integrated intel GPU had to use RAM. It seems nvidia has some issues with some Wine games. That's to be expected i guess.

nvidia-smi
Mon Mar 10 21:14:43 2025       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.124.04             Driver Version: 570.124.04     CUDA Version: 12.8     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| 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 MX130           Off |   00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   88C    P0            N/A  /  200W |    1490MiB /   2048MiB |     26%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
                                                                                         
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A             592      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                           187MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A             844      G   xfwm4                                     1MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            4834      G   ...share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam          1MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            5024      G   ./steamwebhelper                          5MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            5049    C+G   .../share/Steam/logs/cef_log.txt          2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            5296      G   ./ProjectZomboid64                     1281MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

seth · 2025-03-11 07:38:01

Do you lack https://archlinux.org/packages/multilib … dia-utils/ ?

Arch Linux

#1 2025-03-09 07:43:24

Nvidia card not working properly?

#2 2025-03-09 08:36:02

Re: Nvidia card not working properly?

#3 2025-03-10 00:43:14

Re: Nvidia card not working properly?

#4 2025-03-10 08:06:44

Re: Nvidia card not working properly?

#5 2025-03-10 23:22:19

Re: Nvidia card not working properly?

#6 2025-03-11 00:27:11

Re: Nvidia card not working properly?

#7 2025-03-11 07:38:01

Re: Nvidia card not working properly?

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