Arch Linux

andyturfer

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 106

[SOLVED] Is it possible to power down a dedicated AMD GPU in a laptop?

I recently purchased a Lenovo Legion 7 gen 7 and installed Arch Linux, and am now looking for ways to get the most out of the battery. The laptop has a Ryzen 7 6800H and a dedicated Radeon 6700m.

My previous laptop had a dedicated Nvidia GPU, and I was able to turn off the Nvidia dGPU using either Optimus Manager or EnvyControl.

I've read through the Arch doc on Hybrid Graphics and have tried using the acpi_call method it mentions to try and power down the Radeon 6700m, but this doesn't work on my Legion 7.

I'm not sure if AMD GPUs have Runtime D3 (RTD3) or if that technology is just an Nvidia thing, but I think the dedicated Radeon 6700m might by in a low power state anyway:

$ cat /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:01\:00.0/power/runtime_status
suspended

Is there anything similar Optimus Manager or envycontrol to completely power down an dedicated AMD GPU on a laptop?

Last edited by andyturfer (2023-08-27 10:41:56)

topcat01

Member

Registered: 2019-09-17

Posts: 284

Re: [SOLVED] Is it possible to power down a dedicated AMD GPU in a laptop?

Does anything show up in powertop? How much is the idle power draw (please close all apps)?

andyturfer

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 106

Re: [SOLVED] Is it possible to power down a dedicated AMD GPU in a laptop?

With all apps closed, power draw usually hovers around the 10W - 12W mark:

PowerTOP 2.15     Overview   Idle stats   Frequency stats   Device stats   Tunables   WakeUp                            

The battery reports a discharge rate of 12.5 W
The energy consumed was 258 J
The estimated remaining time is 4 hours, 59 minutes

Summary: 2086.2 wakeups/second,  0.0 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 17.1% CPU use

Power est.    Usage       Events/s    Category       Description
  11.0 W    100.0%                      Device         USB device: ITE Device(8258) (ITE Tech. Inc.)
  765 mW     39.1 ms/s     113.1        Process        [PID 2233] /usr/bin/konsole
  562 mW     28.7 ms/s     241.9        Process        [PID 1905] /usr/bin/plasmashell --no-respawn
  557 mW     28.5 ms/s     173.6        Process        [PID 1849] /usr/bin/kwin_x11 --replace
  416 mW     21.3 ms/s     230.2        Process        [PID 1665] /usr/lib/Xorg -nolisten tcp -background none -seat seat0 vt2 -auth
  306 mW    100.0%                      Device         Radio device: btusb
  199 mW     10.2 ms/s     200.0        Interrupt      [133] amdgpu
  187 mW    100.0%                      Device         Radio device: ideapad_acpi
  116 mW      5.9 ms/s     261.3        Interrupt      [10] AMDI0010:00
  103 mW      5.2 ms/s      15.8        kWork          commit_work
 73.3 mW      3.7 ms/s      92.7        Process        [PID 1410] [irq/93-SYNA2BA6]
 57.9 mW      3.0 ms/s       5.8        Process        [PID 2430] powertop
 57.0 mW      2.9 ms/s       1.3        Timer          hrtimer_wakeup
 52.6 mW      2.7 ms/s      21.5        Interrupt      [7] sched(softirq)
 50.5 mW      2.6 ms/s     243.4        Timer          tick_sched_timer
 47.1 mW      2.4 ms/s     139.4        Process        [PID 1859] /usr/bin/kwin_x11 --replace
 44.7 mW      2.3 ms/s     122.5        Process        [PID 1645] [gfx_0.0.0]
 44.6 mW      2.3 ms/s      80.0        Interrupt      [7] pinctrl_amd

topcat01

Member

Registered: 2019-09-17

Posts: 284

Re: [SOLVED] Is it possible to power down a dedicated AMD GPU in a laptop?

Why does "USB device: ITE Device(8258) (ITE Tech. Inc.)" have such an extreme power draw? Is this a keyboard of some sort?

andyturfer

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 106

Re: [SOLVED] Is it possible to power down a dedicated AMD GPU in a laptop?

Why does "USB device: ITE Device(8258) (ITE Tech. Inc.)" have such an extreme power draw? Is this a keyboard of some sort?

I think it is. This Legion 7 has an RGB keyboard that's off the charts (lots of settings, it's very bright, and each key is "programmable"). I should have added in my original post that the backlighting is always turned off - I don't use the backlighting on the keyboard.

topcat01

Member

Registered: 2019-09-17

Posts: 284

Re: [SOLVED] Is it possible to power down a dedicated AMD GPU in a laptop?

Nice. I still think 11W is a bit extreme, especially since the backlight is off. However, on the plus side your discrete GPU does not even show up (the amdgpu entry is the integrated one I think). You will also typically notice a big reduction in heat. On my Dell optimus laptops with X+i3 the fan almost never turns on, and typical power draw is < 3 W for me.

andyturfer

Member

Registered: 2021-01-08

Posts: 106

Re: [SOLVED] Is it possible to power down a dedicated AMD GPU in a laptop?

Nice one - thanks! Good to know the dedicate GPU is powered off (or close to powered off).

So it could be the keyboard that's consuming all this power? Perhaps it has a power hungry micro-controller? If so, I guess it will be a difficult one to power down