Arch Linux

paozaf

Member

Registered: 2012-11-29

Posts: 78

[SOLVED] Exclude Xorg from NVIDIA GPU

Hi,
I have a laptop with an NVIDIA card, in addition to the Intel controller.

I use prime-run to run a certain application on the NVIDIA device...so far so good.

I noted that, when I ran the nvidia-smi command, I see Xorg running on the NVIDIA GPU (4MB).
I expected to find that device totally empty since I didn't run anything by using prime-run.
I think this is draining power, reducing the amount of time I can stay in battery mode.

Any idea on how to "ban" Xorg from running on the GPU?

Thanks a lot.

Last edited by paozaf (2023-06-12 09:04:16)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 75,664

Re: [SOLVED] Exclude Xorg from NVIDIA GPU

No, no  and that's not possible or what this means.

The Xorg server (or rather the nvidia X11 driver) needs to "use" the nvidia kernel module, otherwise prime-run would not work, but that doesn't imply it would move the GPU to a power cosuming state (nvidia-smi likely will, though)
See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PRIME#NVIDIA for whether your system is eligible or maybe defaults to a full power down of the GPU and nb. that in case you want to attach a monitor to it (often the case w/ the HDMI output) you cannot power down the nvidia GPU at all.

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paozaf

Member

Registered: 2012-11-29

Posts: 78

Re: [SOLVED] Exclude Xorg from NVIDIA GPU

Great, now it's clear.
Thanks a lot.