Arch Linux

tj8892

Member

Registered: 2017-01-29

Posts: 14

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I'm torn between the xps 13 and 15. It seems like the intel 640 gpu would save a lot of pain, and have good enough performance for the light games I play (the xps 15's 630 is a bit weaker I think, not sure by how much) but I'm worried a dual core wouldn't be good enough, and that the xps 13 would feel a bit small/cramped. Despite the 13 working so well they offer it with ubuntu, my understanding from this thread is that between hibernation etc sometimes not working to the pita that is the 1050, I probably shouldn't get a 15 for linux. With the current kernel, is everything starting to work? I'd like to avoid bumblebee if it's possible, and just disable the 1050 to get more performance, but once in a while I want to reboot and force the nvidia card to be on for that session. Is it possible to switch GPU on reboot for the entire x session, so that I don't have to individually run stuff with optirun/primus, and get 100% performance?

xulongwu4

Member

Registered: 2017-04-09

Posts: 3

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Hi  I have a question about the fan on this laptop. My laptop runs mostly quiet on battery. However, when it is plugged into ac, the fan runs constantly at low speed and rarely turns off. The CPU is almost 100% idle and the temperature is around 40 degree Celsius. Anyone has the same problem or suggestions on this?

lolzballs

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 5

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I'd like to avoid bumblebee if it's possible, and just disable the 1050 to get more performance, but once in a while I want to reboot and force the nvidia card to be on for that session. Is it possible to switch GPU on reboot for the entire x session, so that I don't have to individually run stuff with optirun/primus, and get 100% performance?

There isn't a bios option to disable the Nvidia card. Afaik you have the use bbswitch to disable it.

zedsdead

Member

Registered: 2017-03-24

Posts: 4

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I'd like to avoid bumblebee if it's possible, and just disable the 1050 to get more performance, but once in a while I want to reboot and force the nvidia card to be on for that session. Is it possible to switch GPU on reboot for the entire x session, so that I don't have to individually run stuff with optirun/primus, and get 100% performance?

Before switching to Bumblebee/bbswitch, I was using acpi_call to turn off the Nvidia GPU.  It would be on by default at boot, and then you can turn it off manually.  I used the following script to do that, which I adapated from this example after seeing which call worked to turn off the GPU.

#!/bin/bash

if lsmod | grep -q acpi_call; then
method="\_SB.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._OFF"

echo -n "Trying $m: "
echo $method > /proc/acpi/call
result=$(cat /proc/acpi/call)
case "$result" in
    Error*)
        echo "failed"
    ;;
    *)
        echo "success"
    ;;
esac

else
    echo "The acpi_call module is not loaded, try running 'modprobe acpi_call' or 'insmod acpi_call.ko' as root"
    exit 1
fi

This was on the 4.10.4 kernel but I've since downgraded to 4.9.17 and haven't tested this method on that version.  I think you should be able to use bbswitch on its own without Bumblebee in order to achieve the same effect but I haven't tried it.  I'm very happy with the XPS15 after switching to the 4.9 kernel and compiling it with the ACPI_REV_OVERRIDE option, which fixed the resume from sleep and keyboard/trackpad problems mentioned on this thread.

arapat

Member

Registered: 2017-03-22

Posts: 6

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Hi  I have a question about the fan on this laptop. My laptop runs mostly quiet on battery. However, when it is plugged into ac, the fan runs constantly at low speed and rarely turns off. The CPU is almost 100% idle and the temperature is around 40 degree Celsius. Anyone has the same problem or suggestions on this?

This happens to me too. So far I am just living with it.

tj8892

Member

Registered: 2017-01-29

Posts: 14

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

http://www.dell.com/support/article/au/ … em?lang=EN
Does this work on Arch with the xps 15? Specifically, picking the gpu in nvidia-settings, or using prime-select? Overall, would you guys recommend getting one of these to excluively boot Arch, or does it have too many problems?

s10e

Member

Registered: 2017-04-06

Posts: 2

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Hi  I have a question about the fan on this laptop. My laptop runs mostly quiet on battery. However, when it is plugged into ac, the fan runs constantly at low speed and rarely turns off. The CPU is almost 100% idle and the temperature is around 40 degree Celsius. Anyone has the same problem or suggestions on this?

it seems that as long as the dGPU is on, the fans will never turn off

simo8989

Member

Registered: 2015-12-22

Posts: 72

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Hi  I have a question about the fan on this laptop. My laptop runs mostly quiet on battery. However, when it is plugged into ac, the fan runs constantly at low speed and rarely turns off. The CPU is almost 100% idle and the temperature is around 40 degree Celsius. Anyone has the same problem or suggestions on this?

it seems that as long as the dGPU is on, the fans will never turn off

I suspect the same. For me that I have all the power options on good from powertop and temperatures around 40 Celsius the fans never stop completely.
I really think that even if bumblebee says that the dGPU is turned off that is actually not the case. If really the dGPU is off as it happens on windows, the fans should turn off after a while when the laptop is plugged in.

This is further confirmed from the power consumption of powerstat -d 2, that for me is 15W on idle. This is too much and I believe not possible when 100% idle... unless the dGPU is on.

Last edited by simo8989 (2017-04-10 14:43:33)

xulongwu4

Member

Registered: 2017-04-09

Posts: 3

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Hi  I have a question about the fan on this laptop. My laptop runs mostly quiet on battery. However, when it is plugged into ac, the fan runs constantly at low speed and rarely turns off. The CPU is almost 100% idle and the temperature is around 40 degree Celsius. Anyone has the same problem or suggestions on this?

it seems that as long as the dGPU is on, the fans will never turn off

I suspect the same. For me that I have all the power options on good from powertop and temperatures around 40 Celsius the fans never stop completely.
I really think that even if bumblebee says that the dGPU is turned off that is actually not the case. If really the dGPU is off as it happens on windows, the fans should turn off after a while when the laptop is plugged in.

This is further confirmed from the power consumption of powerstat -d 2, that for me is 15W on idle. This is too much and I believe not possible when 100% idle... unless the dGPU is on.

I think I am very positive the dGPU is off. Before turning off the dGPU the CPU runs at 42 degree Celsius on idle, while with dGPU off it settles at 38 degree Celcius. Also, when the dGPU is on, I see the information on the Nvidia card from the "lspci -v" command. When it is off, the same command would show "Unknown device" for the Nvidia card.

The fan issue seems only happens on AC. When on battery it is much more quiet. That also makes me think it is not related to the dGPU.

There are more discussions here about this issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/ … anagement/. In one reply someone mentioned that this is because Dell has an aggressive fan table when AC is plugged.

gilbertw1

Member

Registered: 2016-04-27

Posts: 14

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Driver version 381.09 just popped up in the linux driver archive on nvidia...Salvation?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-archive.html

Edit:
You can install it using the AUR package: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nvidia-beta/. I tried it, but ran into dependency errors.

Last edited by gilbertw1 (2017-04-11 21:18:23)

simo8989

Member

Registered: 2015-12-22

Posts: 72

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

it seems that as long as the dGPU is on, the fans will never turn off

I suspect the same. For me that I have all the power options on good from powertop and temperatures around 40 Celsius the fans never stop completely.
I really think that even if bumblebee says that the dGPU is turned off that is actually not the case. If really the dGPU is off as it happens on windows, the fans should turn off after a while when the laptop is plugged in.

This is further confirmed from the power consumption of powerstat -d 2, that for me is 15W on idle. This is too much and I believe not possible when 100% idle... unless the dGPU is on.

I think I am very positive the dGPU is off. Before turning off the dGPU the CPU runs at 42 degree Celsius on idle, while with dGPU off it settles at 38 degree Celcius. Also, when the dGPU is on, I see the information on the Nvidia card from the "lspci -v" command. When it is off, the same command would show "Unknown device" for the Nvidia card.

The fan issue seems only happens on AC. When on battery it is much more quiet. That also makes me think it is not related to the dGPU.

There are more discussions here about this issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/ … anagement/. In one reply someone mentioned that this is because Dell has an aggressive fan table when AC is plugged.

Seems off on paper but I think we have ultimately to look at the power consumption of the laptop. I expect something around 7-8 W on idle with all the optimal power saving options on and of course dGPU off.
What do you get from powerstat?

Anthony25

Member

Registered: 2012-10-24

Posts: 44

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I suspect the same. For me that I have all the power options on good from powertop and temperatures around 40 Celsius the fans never stop completely.
I really think that even if bumblebee says that the dGPU is turned off that is actually not the case. If really the dGPU is off as it happens on windows, the fans should turn off after a while when the laptop is plugged in.

This is further confirmed from the power consumption of powerstat -d 2, that for me is 15W on idle. This is too much and I believe not possible when 100% idle... unless the dGPU is on.

I think I am very positive the dGPU is off. Before turning off the dGPU the CPU runs at 42 degree Celsius on idle, while with dGPU off it settles at 38 degree Celcius. Also, when the dGPU is on, I see the information on the Nvidia card from the "lspci -v" command. When it is off, the same command would show "Unknown device" for the Nvidia card.

The fan issue seems only happens on AC. When on battery it is much more quiet. That also makes me think it is not related to the dGPU.

There are more discussions here about this issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/ … anagement/. In one reply someone mentioned that this is because Dell has an aggressive fan table when AC is plugged.

Seems off on paper but I think we have ultimately to look at the power consumption of the laptop. I expect something around 7-8 W on idle with all the optimal power saving options on and of course dGPU off.
What do you get from powerstat?

Mine is off, I use bbswitch that confirms me the dGPU is off. I achieve to get ~8W when idling, but there is an issue with fans on A/C: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/ … n_and_fan/.

zedsdead

Member

Registered: 2017-03-24

Posts: 4

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Mine is off, I use bbswitch that confirms me the dGPU is off. I achieve to get ~8W when idling, but there is an issue with fans on A/C: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/ … n_and_fan/.

What methods are you using to get ~8W when idling, and on which kernel version?  I haven't been able to get lower than 13W, with powertop --autotune, tlp (default options I think), and Bumblebee/bbswitch with the nvidia card supposedly off.  I'd love to lower the power consumption some more but not sure what else to do.

hedgepigdaniel

Member

Registered: 2014-01-07

Posts: 42

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Driver version 381.09 just popped up in the linux driver archive on nvidia...Salvation?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-archive.html

Edit:
You can install it using the AUR package: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nvidia-beta/. I tried it, but ran into dependency errors.

I think this is salvation.

I installed nvidia-beta-dkms from AUR (had to remove all my previous nvidia packages first) and it works

EDIT: I also had to edit the PKGBUILD as per the comment on the AUR package, since its not updated for 381.09 yet

Last edited by hedgepigdaniel (2017-04-12 11:28:19)

hedgepigdaniel

Member

Registered: 2014-01-07

Posts: 42

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I think this is salvation.

I installed nvidia-beta-dkms from AUR (had to remove all my previous nvidia packages first) and it works

EDIT: I also had to edit the PKGBUILD as per the comment on the AUR package, since its not updated for 381.09 yet

Either that or it was the latest BIOS for 9560 which I installed earlier

gilbertw1

Member

Registered: 2016-04-27

Posts: 14

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Thanks for the pointer, definitely the new driver! I haven't updated the BIOS yet and I'm not running any custom kernels, but I installed the beta driver and bumblebee runs perfectly!

Everything I did:

1) Uninstall all existing nvidia packages

2) Install the 'nvidia-beta-dkms' package with the following PKGBUILD edits:
  - pkgver=381.09
  - linux<4.11
  - md5sums_x86_64=('fe66660415e3919681e61bfc4e95cba4')

3) Edit /etc/default/grub
  - GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT='pcie_port_pm=off acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux acpi_osi=! acpi_osi="Windows 2009" rcutree.rcu_idle_gp_delay=1'

4) Run grub-mkconfig

5) Reboot

6) optirun ./profit

Last edited by gilbertw1 (2017-04-12 13:08:31)

Woutwo

Member

Registered: 2017-04-06

Posts: 5

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Thanks guys, I've got my system running by combining some of the posts. I've compiled a complete step-by-step documentation for those who want it.

Full documentation of Nvidia Bumblebee installation

1) Remove any existing nvidia packages if you installed them and be sure you have linux kernel 4.10 installed (together with the linux-headers package)

2) Install nvidia-utils-beta together with the nvidia-libgl-beta package from AUR without any modifications.

3) Download and change the PKGBUILD of nvidia-beta-dkms

(I personally like downloading the source in case something goes wrong and you need to change the PKGBUILD, but you can do it any other way of course)

$ yaourt -G nvidia-beta-dkms
$ cd nvidia-beta-dkms
$ nano PKGBUILD

4) in PKGBUILD, change the following lines like so:

=> pkgver=381.09
=> depends=('dkms' 'linux>=3.7' 'linux<4.11' "nvidia-utils-beta>=${pkgver}" 'libgl')
=> md5sums_x86_64=('fe66660415e3919681e61bfc4e95cba4')

5) Install the nvidia-beta-dkms package

$ makepkg -i

6) Edit /etc/default/grub to the following:

=> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT='<the default values> pcie_port_pm=off acpi_backlight=vendor acpi_osi=Linux acpi_osi=! acpi_osi="Windows 2009" rcutree.rcu_idle_gp_delay=1'

7) Update grub

# grub-mkconfig

8) Reboot

9) install bumblebee-git package from AUR together with the primus package

10) Add bumblebee group to your user

# gpasswd -a <username> bumblebee

11) Reboot

12) Enable bumblebee

# systemctl enable bumblebeed
# systemctl start bumblebeed

13) test by running optirum glxgears

simo8989

Member

Registered: 2015-12-22

Posts: 72

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

Great! can you measure the power usage through on battery and idle with powerstat -d 2    ??

Woutwo

Member

Registered: 2017-04-06

Posts: 5

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

18W on idle, when screen is maximum lit it will go to about 22W

simo8989

Member

Registered: 2015-12-22

Posts: 72

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

18W on idle, when screen is maximum lit it will go to about 22W

Same here.. 15W with 4k screen on 1/3 brightness.

I am not satisfied with the fans: when the laptop is plugged in, even if the battery is charged at 100% the fan continues to spin at low rate.
In windows this does not happen and the fan stops after a while.

Woutwo

Member

Registered: 2017-04-06

Posts: 5

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

The fans are indeed spinning when idle. They are not loud, but they are hearable.

hedgepigdaniel

Member

Registered: 2014-01-07

Posts: 42

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I found that putting thermal pads on the SSD and PCH reduced fan speeds significantly on light-medium loads. Not sure if the fans ever turn of on AC but is that really a problem? at 2500rpm they are as good as inaudible

c0mpute

Member

Registered: 2016-11-28

Posts: 4

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I'm having trouble installing the nvidia-utils-beta package. I'm running into a dependency issue with libglvnd:

could not satisfy dependencies:

cairo: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
freeglut: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
glu: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
gnome-session: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
libreoffice-fresh: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
libva: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
mesa-demos: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
mpv: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
qt4: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
qt5-base: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
sdl2: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
tigervnc: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
webkitgtk: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
webkitgtk2: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
xorg-server: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
xorg-server-xvfb: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
xorg-xdriinfo: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'

I'm not sure how to proceed. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

lolzballs

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 5

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I'm having trouble installing the nvidia-utils-beta package. I'm running into a dependency issue with libglvnd:

could not satisfy dependencies:

cairo: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
freeglut: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
glu: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
gnome-session: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
libreoffice-fresh: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
libva: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
mesa-demos: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
mpv: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
qt4: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
qt5-base: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
sdl2: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
tigervnc: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
webkitgtk: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
webkitgtk2: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
xorg-server: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
xorg-server-xvfb: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'
xorg-xdriinfo: removing libglvnd  breaks dependency 'libgl'

I'm not sure how to proceed. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Just remove libglvnd using -Rdd.

xulongwu4

Member

Registered: 2017-04-09

Posts: 3

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 (Early 2017)

I suspect the same. For me that I have all the power options on good from powertop and temperatures around 40 Celsius the fans never stop completely.
I really think that even if bumblebee says that the dGPU is turned off that is actually not the case. If really the dGPU is off as it happens on windows, the fans should turn off after a while when the laptop is plugged in.

This is further confirmed from the power consumption of powerstat -d 2, that for me is 15W on idle. This is too much and I believe not possible when 100% idle... unless the dGPU is on.

I think I am very positive the dGPU is off. Before turning off the dGPU the CPU runs at 42 degree Celsius on idle, while with dGPU off it settles at 38 degree Celcius. Also, when the dGPU is on, I see the information on the Nvidia card from the "lspci -v" command. When it is off, the same command would show "Unknown device" for the Nvidia card.

The fan issue seems only happens on AC. When on battery it is much more quiet. That also makes me think it is not related to the dGPU.

There are more discussions here about this issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/ … anagement/. In one reply someone mentioned that this is because Dell has an aggressive fan table when AC is plugged.

Seems off on paper but I think we have ultimately to look at the power consumption of the laptop. I expect something around 7-8 W on idle with all the optimal power saving options on and of course dGPU off.
What do you get from powerstat?

I get about 8W on idle with powerstop. I have a FHD version though. I don't have the nvme powersaving patch installed.