Nvidia card consumes large amount of power in suspend mode

[Matt W.]

I am running 19.04 on a Lenovo X1 Extreme. The laptop has an Nvidia 1050 Ti Mobile graphics card. I am using the Nvidia driver version 430 via the graphics-drivers PPA package nvidia-graphics-drivers-430 of version "430.40-0ubuntu0~gpu19.04.2".

When the computer has the Nvidia drivers active via prime-select, a large amount of power is consumed in suspend mode. I have attached the output of this script: https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ACPI_sleep_power_drain_test_script (battery-test.log) which estimates that the computer uses about 4.5 W on average during suspend.

On the other hand, when the Nvidia card is not in use (prime-select is used to switch to Intel graphics and bbswitch is used to ensure the Nvidia card is off), the power drain during suspend mode is 1 W or less. Therefore, it looks like the system fails to power-down the Nvidia card before suspending when it is being used.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.04
Package: linux-image-5.0.0-27-generic 5.0.0-27.28
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.0.0-27.28-generic 5.0.21
Uname: Linux 5.0.0-27-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu27.1
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: matt 2519 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: matt 2519 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat Sep 7 11:54:57 2019
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-09-04 (3 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.04 "Disco Dingo" - Release amd64 (20190416)
MachineType: LENOVO 20MGS1YW00
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-5.0.0-27-generic root=UUID=3a5c73f9-5be3-4590-88a9-e362d949931c ro quiet splash vt.handoff=1
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-5.0.0-27-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-5.0.0-27-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.178.3
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 07/03/2019
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: N2EET41W (1.23 )
dmi.board.asset.tag: Not Available
dmi.board.name: 20MGS1YW00
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: SDK0J40697 WIN
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: None
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrN2EET41W(1.23):bd07/03/2019:svnLENOVO:pn20MGS1YW00:pvrThinkPadX1Extreme:rvnLENOVO:rn20MGS1YW00:rvrSDK0J40697WIN:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNone:
dmi.product.family: ThinkPad X1 Extreme
dmi.product.name: 20MGS1YW00
dmi.product.sku: LENOVO_MT_20MG_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPad X1 Extreme
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X1 Extreme
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This change was made by a bot.

[AceLan Kao (acelankao)]

Please try this patch for nvidia dkms package
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers/+bug/1836630/comments/23

[Matt W. (mw1234)]

Is there a guide on how to apply a DKMS patch?

[Kai-Heng Feng (kaihengfeng)]

Nvidia is aware of this issue and this will be addressed in future driver update.

[Matt W. (mw1234)]

I "applied" the patch by commenting out the line in /usr/src/nvidia-430.50/nvida/nv.c that is referred to in the link AceLan posted, then I used apt-get install --reinstall on the nvidia-dkms package to see if that would make the system compile and install the edited source files.

After that it seems the power drain issue is fixed.