Script increases idle power consumption with 20%

[tvld]

Powertops used to report around 4.8W completely idle with display to 50%. After running the script, it increased to about 6W on idle.
I suspect it is the GRUB settings ... but need to fiddle what exactly causes it. ( I have a XPS 9560, FHD version)

[JackHack96]

Uhm, the GRUB modifications are described in the wiki.
Have you found the culprit?

[JackHack96]

I think it could also be for the nvidia card not turning off completely. In my laptop it does like that sometime (though it's very rare). Suspending and then waking the laptop solves that usually.

[tvld]

I did not yet have the time to step by step nail it down. So it's a bit too soon. I did create a script though to completely power down the Nvidia card... it might interfere with that...

[JackHack96]

Oh sorry, then I'll reopen this.
My brother got an XPS too (the 2019 version) and I saw the same problem as mine, that was what it caused the high power usage, so I made him a systemd script for powering off the card.
xps-tweaks used to install this systemd service, ut I had removed it since I thought Ubuntu 20.04 solved the problem

[ChisholmKyle]

I wonder if it's related to the USB-C/dock, and issue #132
What commit did you have the systemd service? How do you turn the nvidia card off?

[tvld]

@ChisholmKyle I used this : stockmind#8

It's the last time I buy a laptop with Nvidia ... they are really evil in relation to Liniux, I think... )

[JackHack96]

@tvld is right, that's the script you're probably looking for. It shouldn't be necessary though. On my 9570 I get the active nVidia card only once in a while, and suspending the laptop then resuming it fixes that (or just reboot).
All of these troubles are indeed related to the approach of nVidia with drivers, the next PC I'll build and the next laptop I'll bought will be AMD, which is far more Linux-friendly.