Nvidia Powermizer defaults to adaptive mode? :(

[travlemon]

Hey everybody,

So, I am running Ubuntu 10.04 on my laptop. I just did a clean install (instead of upgrade) about a week ago or so. I've been tackling a couple of issues and one of the last ones on my list is with my Nvidia card in the laptop.

Nvidia appears to have kindly designed a power saving mode (Powermizer) for our video cards, by clocking down the GPU. However, mine is defaulting to Adaptive mode for Powermizer, and causes much annoyance. While I'm able to switch it to Preferred Performance mode in the Nvidia X server settings, it resets back to Adaptive mode every time I restart the computer. I've tried using the button to save the settings to Xorg.conf, but I think that only saves display configurations such as resolution.

I also tried a couple tricks I found online where you can manually edit the xorg.conf file to disable Powermizer completely, but no luck on that either.

Does anybody know if it's possible to disable Powermizer in Ubuntu 10.04? or default it to Preferred Performance mode? While it's not a huge deal, just very annoying.

Thanks in advance!

[sojusnik]

I'm struggling with the same issue. Hope to find a fix soon for this!

Did you had luck with this tutorial?

http://tutanhamon.com.ua/technovodst...A-UNIX-driver/

If yes, please write how you did it.

[travlemon]

I'm struggling with the same issue. Hope to find a fix soon for this!

Did you had luck with this tutorial?

http://tutanhamon.com.ua/technovodst...A-UNIX-driver/

If yes, please write how you did it.

Hi, thanks for responding! That is the same tutorial I was working with. There are two main problems with that tutorial, in our case.

1. It focuses on helping people do the exact opposite of we want to do. Instead only lists the commands for xorg.conf to decrease performance, so we are totally blind on how to even use the file to our advantage.

2. It looks like this tutorial was written for an older driver, and the commands we're trying to use in xorg.conf may not even work anymore.

I've tried using "PowerMizerEnable=0x0", which I read somewhere that should disable it. It just won't disable it for me, below is my xorg.conf Device section:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 9600M GT"
Option "RegistryDwords" "PowerMizerEnable=0x0"
EndSection

I'm going to keep playing around with this and see if any options effect Powermizer's behavior. Let me know if you make any progress!

[sojusnik]

Some time ago, I've found the following solution, that is working for me:

Create a file called /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf with this in it:

options nvidia NVreg_RegistryDwords="PerfLevelSrc=0x2222"

I used this in karmic, but hoped that finally in lucid this annoying bug has vanished.

Does it work for you?

It seems that I have to use the above mentioned method again...

[travlemon]

Some time ago, I've found the following solution, that is working for me:



I used this in karmic, but hoped that finally in lucid this annoying bug has vanished.

Does it work for you?

It seems that I have to use the above mentioned method again...

Yes! I used your method and it now seems to be clocked at full performance! I'm not sure where you found the fix, but thank you very much for the tip! It was driving me nuts, having to set it each time. I'll be marking this as solved and printing a PDF copy to my database of fixes.

Thanks again!

[sojusnik]

That's kinda wired, my fix doesn't seem to work for me under lucid.

Can you describe each step you did to manage powermizer to work at max. perf.?

[travlemon]

That's kinda wired, my fix doesn't seem to work for me under lucid.

Can you describe each step you did to manage powermizer to work at max. perf.?

Sure thing!

Step 1: I opened the terminal and I executed this command:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

Since the file does not exist yet, Gedit should open up anyway. When we later click save, it saves as the filename and location that I typed in the above command.

Step 2: I copied and pasted the following line (provided by you) in Gedit:

options nvidia NVreg_RegistryDwords="PerfLevelSrc=0x2222"

I made sure that there were no hidden spaces before or after the text, and that it was the very first line in Gedit. Then, I simply clicked save. I closed Gedit and then rebooted my laptop.

Conclusion: I'm going to try to attach screenshots to this post. I'm new to the forum, so I might screw it up. Anyway, if I do it correctly, you should see a print screen of what my nvidia.conf file looks like when opened in Gedit. Also, I'll post a screenshot of the Nvidia settings.

The drop down menu in the Powermizer section still says "Adaptive", but the clock has been consistently on 500mhz (the highest). Also, Performance Mode reports that it is in "Maximum performance" mode. You will see what I mean in the screenshots.

Nvidia Conf Gedit.png
NVIDIA X Server Settings - Powermizer.png

[sojusnik]

That's so depressing, this method isn't working for me anymore...

Can you remove the [solved], so that maybe others can help too?

[travlemon]

That's so depressing, this method isn't working for me anymore...

Can you remove the [solved], so that maybe others can help too?

Sure! I marked it as unsolved again. I'm sorry to hear that it's not working. I don't know enough about Linux or Ubuntu to give you any suggestions. The best suggestion I could try giving you is to delete nvidia.conf and then try reinstalling the driver, and make sure it's the latest driver from Nvidia.com?

Let me know if that works (though maybe you've tried it already)

[85stang]

travelmon, what version of ubuntu are you running? my nvidia settings does not have the drop down box like that. I need to lock this power mizer thing becasue i think it is freezing X on me when it changes modes. I tried the xorg.conf line and it didnt work for me in Lucid. I tried the solution you did but then X would not start.