April 24, 20233 yr My new server has a NVIDIA RTX2070 Super GPU which was having a relatively high idle power. The link to this topic discusses that and proposes as a solution to run a Windows VM which sets the GPU to use less power. Since Windows tends to do a lot of other things in the background I wanted to see if this could be done in a Linux VM as well. As mentioned by @SimonF below, an easier alternative is just setting persistence mode on the GPU: sudo nvidia-smi --persistence-mode=ENABLED So the information below is just for reference if people come here from a search engine. And it shows the reduced power usage. 🙂 The nvidia-smi tool can show the current performance mode: Performance State The current performance state for the GPU. States range from P0 (maximum performance) to P12 (minimum performance). See: nvidia-smi docs Mine says P0 which according to the manual is the highest performance which uses 38W while idle: |===============================+======================+======================| | 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... Off | 00000000:04:00.0 Off | N/A | | 0% 48C P0 38W / 215W | 0MiB / 8192MiB | 0% Default | | | | N/A | +-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ You can change the performance mode using nvidia-settings: nvidia-settings -a "[gpu:0]/GpuPowerMizerMode=2" See Nvidia-settings docs. Trying to do so results in this error message: Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused ERROR: The control display is undefined; please run `nvidia-settings --help` for usage information. It requires a graphical user interface which we don't have in the terminal. You can fix this by running a dummy X server as explained here: https://serverfault.com/a/1055788 After doing this my GPU was set to P8 and only uses 20W idle: |===============================+======================+======================| | 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... Off | 00000000:04:00.0 Off | N/A | | 0% 36C P8 20W / 215W | 7MiB / 8192MiB | 0% Default | | | | N/A | +-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ Aso it runs a bit cooler which is a nice extra. More information and screenshots about the performance mode can be read here: https://rastating.github.io/how-to-permanently-set-nvidia-powermizer-settings-in-ubuntu/ Unfortunately I was unable to set it to P12 which should be the minimal power usage. Although it says 20W, my meter only shows around 10-15W extra after adding the GPU. Which is what it should be if I read idle power usage of a RTX2070 super online. Not sure how that is possible. In my experience this is the same as using the Windows VM. But I'd rather run a small Linux VM to keep my GPU idle power to a minimum than running a Windows VM. Still looking for a real solution, but until that I'll keep the GPU power to minimum this way when I'm not using it. Edited April 24, 20233 yr by Redindian
April 24, 20233 yr Community Expert Solution 5 minutes ago, Redindian said: My new server has a NVIDIA RTX2070 Super GPU which was having a relatively high idle power. The link to this topic discusses that and proposes as a solution to run a Windows VM with the GPU so it will be set to use less power. Since Windows tends to do a lot of other things in the background I wanted to see if this could be done in a Linux VM as well. The nvidia-smi tool can show the current performance mode: "Performance State - The current performance state for the GPU. States range from P0 (maximum performance) to P12 (minimum performance)." See: nvidia-smi docs Mine says P0 which according to the manual is the highest performance which uses 38W while idle: |===============================+======================+======================| | 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... Off | 00000000:04:00.0 Off | N/A | | 0% 48C P0 38W / 215W | 0MiB / 8192MiB | 0% Default | | | | N/A | +-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ You can change the performance mode using nvidia-settings. But that requires a desktop which we don't have in the terminal. Trying to do so results in this error message: Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused ERROR: The control display is undefined; please run `nvidia-settings --help` for usage information. It requires a graphical user interface which we don't have in the terminal. You can fix this by running a dummy X server as explained here: https://serverfault.com/a/1055788 After doing this my GPU was set to P8 and only uses 20W idle: |===============================+======================+======================| | 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... Off | 00000000:04:00.0 Off | N/A | | 0% 36C P8 20W / 215W | 7MiB / 8192MiB | 0% Default | | | | N/A | +-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ Aso it runs a bit cooler which is a nice extra. More information and screenshots about the performance mode can be read here: https://rastating.github.io/how-to-permanently-set-nvidia-powermizer-settings-in-ubuntu/ Unfortunately I was unable to set it to P12 which should be the minimal power usage. Although it says 20W, my meter only shows around 10-15W extra after adding the GPU. Which is what it should be if I read idle power usage of a RTX2070 super online. Not sure how that is possible. In my experience this is the same as using the Windows VM. But I'd rather run a small Linux VM to keep my GPU idle power to a minimum than running a Windows VM. Still looking for a real solution, but until that I'll keep the GPU power to minimum this way when I'm not using it. You can use nvidia-persistenced also
April 24, 20233 yr Author 7 minutes ago, SimonF said: You can use nvidia-persistenced also Thanks, sounds interesting! I'm getting an error on Ubuntu even with sudo: nvidia-persistenced failed to initialize. Check syslog for more details. And the syslog: Apr 24 19:20:31 ubuntu nvidia-persistenced: Failed to lock PID file: Resource temporarily unavailable Apr 24 19:20:31 ubuntu nvidia-persistenced: Shutdown (3457) The manual says you don't need to run it directly and use nvidia-smi: Once the init script is installed so that the daemon is running, users should not normally need to manually interact with nvidia-persistenced: the NVIDIA management utilities, such as nvidia-smi, can communicate with it automatically as necessary to manage persistence mode. I was able to set it using: sudo nvidia-smi --persistence-mode=ENABLED First that increased power usage to 49W. And then it dropped back to 20W. So that seems to be an easier alternative. Thanks!
May 3, 20233 yr Author If you are not using the GPU as a passthrough for a VM, but like to use it for Docker you can set it to idle mode as follows. Install the following plugins. NVIDIA drivers: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/98978-plugin-nvidia-driver/ GPU Statistics: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/89453-plugin-gpu-statistics/ UserScripts: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/48286-plugin-ca-user-scripts/ You can add the command to run at "First start of Array" only to set the GPU to idle mode on boot. Or any other schedule of course. nvidia-smi --persistence-mode=ENABLED Very nice! 👍
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