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#1 2010-04-24 16:46:59

jlacroix
Member
Registered: 2009-08-16
Posts: 576

Trying To Underclock My Nvidia GPU (Dell D630)...

I have a Dell Latitude D630 with an Nvidia Quadro 135M video card, and it's always running hot. I don't play any games (other than Frozen Bubble and Wesnoth) so I don't really care to have full acceleration.

This laptop is still under warranty, and I have had Dell come out and replace the motherboard three times. The first two times didn't fix it, but the third time helped a lot. The third time the GPU temp went from running at 185F at idle, to 141F at idle. (The CPU sticks at around 115F). However, even though it's 40 degrees cooler, it is still hot to the touch and I'd like to underclock it to make it even cooler.

Under nvidia-settings, there are three performance levels shown, as follows:

0 - 169mhz NV Clock, 100mhz Memory Clock
1 - 275mhz NV Clock, 301mhz Memory Clock
2 - 400mhz NV Clock, 594mhz Memory Clock

The problem is that it's always using the maximum level, which is 2. I think that Power Level 1 is fine for me, being that I don't do anything intensive. However, no matter what I do, it will not under any circumstances ever switch to a different power level. When I use the xorg.conf settings PowerMizerLevelAC and PowerMizerLevel as discussed at the link below, it does not change anything at all.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVI … laptops.29

Now I do have a spare hard drive with Windows on it that I tried, and it has the same problem, so I know this is not specific to Linux. However, I'd like to find an xorg option or some way of underclocking this thing. Does anyone know the secret?

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#2 2010-04-24 18:53:22

skunktrader
Member
From: Brisbane, Australia
Registered: 2010-02-14
Posts: 1,538

Re: Trying To Underclock My Nvidia GPU (Dell D630)...

Did you try nvclock

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#3 2010-04-24 19:09:07

jlacroix
Member
Registered: 2009-08-16
Posts: 576

Re: Trying To Underclock My Nvidia GPU (Dell D630)...

I just tried NVClock, and it doesn's seem to have a way of forcing the performance levels, unless I'm missing something?

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#4 2010-04-24 19:17:15

vi3dr0
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2009-03-22
Posts: 208

Re: Trying To Underclock My Nvidia GPU (Dell D630)...

try this:

nvclock -m 300 -n 275 -f

works for me.

edit: oh, now I see what's your point. There's no way to set one of three performance levels, however you can set clocks values.

Last edited by vi3dr0 (2010-04-24 19:19:20)


Thinkpad T61p : T7700 | 4GB RAM | nVidia FX 570M | Intel 4965
Arch64 @ Openbox

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#5 2010-04-24 20:13:47

jlacroix
Member
Registered: 2009-08-16
Posts: 576

Re: Trying To Underclock My Nvidia GPU (Dell D630)...

vi3dr0 wrote:

try this:

nvclock -m 300 -n 275 -f

works for me.

edit: oh, now I see what's your point. There's no way to set one of three performance levels, however you can set clocks values.

Thanks. That does work, however it doesn't seem like it changes the temperature all that much. I guess my theory has been defeated. sad

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#6 2010-04-24 21:01:58

Gusar
Member
Registered: 2009-08-25
Posts: 3,605

Re: Trying To Underclock My Nvidia GPU (Dell D630)...

Put this in the Device section in xorg.conf:

    Option "RegistryDwords" "PerfLevelSrc=0x2222; PowerMizerLevelAC=0x3; PowerMizerLevel=0x3

This will force the lowest performance level.

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#7 2010-04-24 23:27:44

jlacroix
Member
Registered: 2009-08-16
Posts: 576

Re: Trying To Underclock My Nvidia GPU (Dell D630)...

Gusar wrote:

Put this in the Device section in xorg.conf:

    Option "RegistryDwords" "PerfLevelSrc=0x2222; PowerMizerLevelAC=0x3; PowerMizerLevel=0x3

This will force the lowest performance level.

Unfortunately that has no effect whatsoever. I added it to the xorg.conf file and rebooted, and it is still at the max level. sad

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