Disable a nVidia GPU
reddit / freebsd

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zielonykid1234 · 2022-01-01 01:29

I can hear my GPU working while using FreeBSD and battery life is much
shorter than on Linux. I have an unsupported model - RTX 3050 Mobile.
Is it possible to disable my GPU in FreeBSD?

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[deleted] · 2022-01-01 01:45

Do you have an intel gpu. many laptops have both. You can use that
instead.

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vermaden · 2022-01-01 16:28

To tweak power consumption on FreeBSD use this:

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2018/11/28/the-power-to-serve-
freebsd-power-management/

Also one of the tweaks is to disable power draw from devices that have
no driver attached. So if you configure X11 to use just integrated
Intel GPU and do not load Nvidia kernel module then it would not use
power.

X11 configuration:

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2018/05/22/freebsd-desktop-
part-3-x11-window-system/

Hope that helps.

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zielonykid1234 · 2022-01-01 22:29

\> So if you configure X11 to use just integrated Intel GPU and do not
load Nvidia kernel module then it would not use power.

I have that issue also in FreeBSD live USB so it's not X11 problem.

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zielonykid1234 · 2022-01-01 22:35

Do you remember my hybrid laptop? I noticed few days ago FreeBSD uses
my nVidia GPU (unsupported by nv) and I don't know how to turn it off.
In Linux it's off without the nVidia driver.

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[deleted] · 2022-01-01 23:08

I hate laptops. I mine I enabled the intel driver and didn't bother
with the nvidia driver. Took me forever to figure it out. In the end
it was pretty simple and I was going about it wrong.

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cjd166 · 2022-01-02 00:54

You may have the option of disabling the GPU in the BIOS.

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vermaden · 2022-01-02 04:50

The FreeBSD live USB provides power for ALL devices by default and
does not have up-to-date kernel module from **graphics/drm-kmod**
package for Intel GPU.

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alfonsosiciliano · 2022-01-03 16:30

Some time ago I solved reading the wiki:

https://wiki.freebsd.org/TuningPowerConsumption#NVIDIA\_Optimus

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zielonykid1234 · 2022-01-04 20:51

Thank you :D

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zielonykid1234 · 2022-01-04 20:52

ok

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zielonykid1234 · 2022-01-04 20:53

Unfortunately, my BIOS can't do that.

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zielonykid1234 · 2022-01-04 20:58

>I hate laptops

😳😳I hate laptops too 😳😳

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mirror176 · 2022-01-06 10:57

If you don't have another solution, I have experienced Nvidia cards
that ran their fan at full until a driver was loaded or the GUI
launched (don't remember which).
[https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/184165/en-
us](https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/184165/en-us)
shows support on the latest driver which is newer than the ports tree
currently has; following their install instructions instead of the
usual \`pkg install\` or port building steps would be necessary. As it
was released weeks ago, not sure if the port maintainer is working on
it, delaying it for a specific reason, or is not aware of it.