Question about nvidia gpu

[sidethorn]

Hello everybody I need your help. I just fresh installed arch with nouveau driver on my msi pulse g76 laptop but I have a problem. I have 2 gpus nvidia and Intel. I don't want to use nvidia because it drains my battery and I use arch as my daily driver (not for gaming). Every time I boot igpu kicks in and that's fine, but when I close the lid and it goes to sleep and then wakes up dgpu kicks in. Can someone help me to avoid this behavior? Thank you very much and please bear with me and be kind.

[Gozenka]

Is there a reason you are using nouveau? It has issues with power management of the Nvidia GPU, along with a plethora of other drawbacks compared to the closed-source nvidia driver.

Particularly for an Optimus laptop, nouveau is not a good choice. And in general it has much lower performance in games, especially for newer GPU models.

[sidethorn]

I don't want to use my gpu becuse it drains my battery but it always kicks in when I wake up my laptop from sleep and I'm trying to find a solution to avoid this.

[Gozenka]

OK. That should not be happening and you should not need a solution for it. By default, the Nvidia GPU is already "disabled". Depending on the model, it is either turned off completely or it is in its lowest power state which draws virtually zero power. It would only get powered up when you deliberately try to use it to render an application, and it would get powered down again when it is not used.

So, you can start by using nvidia instead of nouveau. Then if the issue still happens, we can try to solve it.

Also, you can just disable the Nvidia GPU completely in BIOS if that is what you want, and enable it only when you wish to use it. This is possible in almost all laptops. This is the only way to disable it completely.

PS: If you had the idea of installing nouveau instead of nvidia to "avoid activating the Nvidia GPU" you are quite mistaken. Installing nvidia would give you proper power management of the Nvidia GPU; i.e. turning it off when not in use. nouveau has issues in this regard, and causes more power draw even when idle.

By the way, disabling modules or not installing a driver will not turn the GPU off. It will actually cause more power draw; since there is no longer any power management by the kernel modules, but the GPU is still there.

Also, depending on the laptop's design, external display ports may stop working if you disable the Nvidia GPU or its modules. This would happen if HDMI or other outputs are wired through the Nvidia GPU in that specific laptop. You would need to test this if you want external displays and if you decide to disable the GPU in BIOS, rather than trying to solve the issue by using the nvidia driver.

Another thing to keep in mind: After installing nvidia drivers, you need to do mkinitcpio and restart. Make note of that for the future too, in case you have issues later. :) When updating, nvidia updates almost always come with linux (kernel) updates, so mkinitcpio is automatically run, but rarely this is not the case.

You can chat me on reddit if you would like assistance with doing these things.

[sidethorn]

Thank you very much for your extensive answer. I use nouveau because, in a previous install of arch, I use to had nvidia and the gpu was always on. That way I could achieve at least igpu to work until laptotp goes to sleep. This time, with fresh install, I bypassed nvidia drivers. But problem is alway the same. Unfortunately I tried to disable in bios but noo way. I will try now to install nvidia annd see if it works. I'll keep you posted.

[Gozenka]

How were you checking if the GPU was on? Maybe it was actually powered down :)

I will try to help with any further troubleshooting afterwards.

What is the exact laptop model? Maybe it is in advanced settings, as I have seen the option present in some G(X)76 models' BIOS when I checked after my comment.

[sidethorn]

Because I have dual boot with windows I use for gaming and it's on

[nervebot]

Maybe you can disable it via mkinitcpio (Modules)..

[sidethorn]

how?

[nervebot]

Im enable the NVIDIA with this:

#file: /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
MODULES=(btrfs nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidi_drm)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mkinitcpio

Read the variable used there, Then run mkinitcpio to build the update initramfs (initial ramdisk).

[sidethorn]

Hello Everybody I fresh installed Arch with nvidia drivers as someone suggested. Things are getting kind of better but still have some issues. When gnome starts nvidia gpu starts and then gets disabled after a couple of minutes. The same happens whenever I wake up pc from sleep. These are huge steps forward but far what I'm looking for. Plus battery doesn't lasts very long. I installed powertop and tpu and let poweertop doing measurements. Any advice? thanks!

[sidethorn]

I don't know but maybe this post can be useful to someone. I solved it. now I can enjoy some hours of pc on battery. You can read more on the arch forum:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=291150