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Histole

Member

Registered: 2025-08-06

Posts: 35

1080 Ti not staying in P8 state

So my 1080Ti is stuck in the P0 state, it drops down to P8 state once I disconnect my second monitor, and only use one. I can't figure out how to get it to drop down with the two monitors connected. I am on the proprietary nvidia drivers. Using wayland on KDE Plasma.

They are 2560x1440@144 and 3440x1440@144

Thoughts?

Linux Kernel:
6.15.9-arch1-1

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 73,559

Re: 1080 Ti not staying in P8 state

You should check the behavior w/ an uncomposited X11 WM but iirc any kind of multihead implies activation of the composition pipeline.
(You'd also get this on a single output when scaling or rotating it?)

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Histole

Member

Registered: 2025-08-06

Posts: 35

Re: 1080 Ti not staying in P8 state

You should check the behavior w/ an uncomposited X11 WM but iirc any kind of multihead implies activation of the composition pipeline.
(You'd also get this on a single output when scaling or rotating it?)

So if I connect just the 2560x1440 display, it idles in P8. Though if I have two monitors connected it idles in P0. I had this issue on windows before I dove into Linux, and it was solved via nvidia inspector’s multi display power saver.

I could check on X11, but I think the benefits of Wayland outweigh the power savings on X11.

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 73,559

Re: 1080 Ti not staying in P8 state

The point is to confirm that this isn't just a glitch of your wayland compositor and the estimate actually that you'll not get any different behavior there

https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/n … /118113/20
I assume this hasn't been addressed, but users there report that lowering the refresh rate or disabling gsync allowed their GPUs to downclock (might completely depend on the generation)

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Histole

Member

Registered: 2025-08-06

Posts: 35

Re: 1080 Ti not staying in P8 state

The point is to confirm that this isn't just a glitch of your wayland compositor and the estimate actually that you'll not get any different behavior there

So I haven’t gotten around to trying X11 yet, as I was working out the Ly issue. I suppose I should add that on Windows I also had a similar phenomenon, albeit it wasn’t in P0 all the time, it did occasionally drop to P8. What fixed it was using Nvidia inspector’s “multi display power saver” which forces the GPU to P8 unless an excluded application is ran. Is there anything similar on Linux?

Will report back once I figure out how to try X11.

Last edited by Histole (2025-08-09 00:25:57)

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 73,559

Re: 1080 Ti not staying in P8 state

I should add that on Windows I also had a similar phenomenon

you've actually mentioned that
nvidia-smi allows you to set a power limit, but neither is that the performance state nor is capping this/freezing the performance necessarily great.

users there report that lowering the refresh rate or disabling gsync allowed their GPUs to downclock

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Histole

Member

Registered: 2025-08-06

Posts: 35

Re: 1080 Ti not staying in P8 state

you've actually mentioned that

Oops yes you're right, wasn't paying attention.

users there report that lowering the refresh rate or disabling gsync allowed their GPUs to downclock

Unfortunately this did not help, it's simply pegged at P0, 60w, instead of 15w in P8... Connecting one monitor allows it to downclock though, but when rotating it in the KDE system settings it goes back up to P0. Though settles back down to P8 after 5-10 seconds. I know this isn't a "big" issue per se, but why waste power and heat if not necessary right?

Edit: Keeping the ultrawide at 144hz, and dropping the secondary monitor to 24hz seemed to have lowered the GPU to P8. I can't tell if the driver is designed to push to P0 in a dual monitor high refresh scenario? Can't be that taxing to need P0? The GPU load on nvtop is quite literally 0%.

Last edited by Histole (2025-08-09 17:08:47)

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 73,559

Re: 1080 Ti not staying in P8 state

This would be more about the crtc than the GPU (ie. the thing that needs to pump put the pixels, not the one that calculates their colors)

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