ClearLinux on XPS 15 7590 (2019) - Power Management issue

General Discussion
1

Hi everybody,
thanks for your work on ClearLinux! I have been installing this on my pretty new XPS15 7590 (2019, OLED) and immediately noticed that it is running warm/hot, fans on a lot while completely idle, and pulling between 20-35 Wh when idling even after running powertop --auto-tune and setting xrandr --brightness 0.4.
PowerTOP gives me these stats regarding CPU states:

       Pkg(HW)  |            Core(HW) |            CPU(OS) 0   CPU(OS) 6
                |                     | C0 active   0,9%        3,6%
                |                     | POLL        0,0%    0,0 ms  0,0%    0,0 ms
                |                     | C1          0,1%    0,1 ms  0,3%    0,2 ms
       C2 (pc2)    0,9%    |                     |
       C3 (pc3)    4,0%    | C3 (cc3)    0,3%    | C3          0,0%    0,0 ms  0,0%    0,0 ms
       C6 (pc6)    0,0%    | C6 (cc6)    0,4%    | C6          0,8%    0,7 ms  0,1%    0,3 ms
       C7 (pc7)    0,0%    | C7 (cc7)   74,4%    | C7s         2,4%    4,3 ms  0,3%    0,1 ms
       C8 (pc8)    0,0%    |                     | C8         34,6%    4,6 ms  0,6%    0,1 ms
       C9 (pc9)    0,0%    |                     | C9          0,0%    0,0 ms  0,0%    0,0 ms
       C10 (pc10)  0,0%    |                     |
                |                     | C10        60,6%   24,2 ms 96,5%    1,0 ms
                |                     | C1E         0,9%    0,4 ms  0,1%    0,4 ms

                |            Core(HW) |            CPU(OS) 1   CPU(OS) 7
                |                     | C0 active   0,7%        0,6%
                |                     | POLL        0,0%    0,0 ms  0,0%    0,0 ms
                |                     | C1          0,1%    0,1 ms  0,0%    0,1 ms
                |                     |
                | C3 (cc3)    0,0%    | C3          0,0%    0,0 ms  0,0%    0,0 ms
                | C6 (cc6)    1,1%    | C6          1,1%    0,8 ms  0,2%    0,9 ms
                | C7 (cc7)   94,9%    | C7s         1,5%    2,4 ms  3,4%   10,9 ms
                |                     | C8         25,4%    4,8 ms 30,3%    3,7 ms
                |                     | C9          0,0%    0,0 ms  0,0%    0,0 ms
                |                     |
                |                     | C10        70,0%   18,5 ms 65,5%   37,8 ms
                |                     | C1E         1,4%    0,4 ms  0,1%    0,4 ms

I believe the CPU is not reaching its power saving states. Fequency stats gives me:

            Package |             Core    |            CPU 0       CPU 6
                |                     | Average   4,0 GHz     4,2 GHz
                Idle                | Idle                | Idle
                                                     4,50 GHz            | 4,50 GHz            | 4,50 GHz

                |             Core    |            CPU 1       CPU 7
                |                     | Average   3,8 GHz     4,1 GHz
                | Idle                | Idle
                | 4,50 GHz            | 4,50 GHz

                |             Core    |            CPU 2       CPU 8
                |                     | Average   4,1 GHz     4,1 GHz
                | Idle                | Idle
                | 4,50 GHz            | 4,50 GHz

                |             Core    |            CPU 3       CPU 9
                |                     | Average   3,9 GHz     4,1 GHz
                | Idle                | Idle
                | 4,50 GHz            | 4,50 GHz

                |             Core    |            CPU 4       CPU 10
                |                     | Average   4,3 GHz     4,2 GHz
                | Idle                | Idle
                | 4,50 GHz            | 4,50 GHz

                |             Core    |            CPU 5       CPU 11
                |                     | Average   4,3 GHz     4,3 GHz
                | Idle                | Idle
                | 4,50 GHz            | 4,50 GHz

Anyone knows that might help here?
Thanks for any clue,

Joost

Edit: sorry for the formatting, I do not completely get how to copy the console output in here so it stays formatted. Bottom line for me is, all Cores run well over 4GHz when idle, and C10/pc10 is never reached (0%).

1 Like
2

Noting a few things here for others and myself which got power consumption down a bit:

Allow lesser CPU core frequencies:

echo powersave | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Maybe fix suspend:

echo deep|sudo tee /sys/power/mem_sleep
cat /sys/power/mem_sleep

PowerTOP autotune

powertop --auto-tune

/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf :

blacklist nouveau
blacklist rivafb
blacklist nvidiafb
blacklist rivatv
blacklist nv

Setting screen brightness on the OLED variant:

xrandr --output eDP-1 --brightness 0.5

Probably not working/needed:

echo 800000 | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq

Right now I am at around 10-20W. Frequency scaling works, but pcstates don’t show any movement.

Still to explore: intel-undervolt ( https://andreas-mausch.de/blog/2019/07/10/xps-7590/ )

1 Like
3

Give this one a try, cut my idle temperatures by quite a bit when the default changed (desktop so no power draw readings).

mkdir -p /etc/kernel/cmdline.d
echo "pcie_aspm.policy=powersupersave" | tee /etc/kernel/cmdline.d/aspm.conf
clr-boot-manager update

Remembering that you can change the kernel boot parameter by holding space during boot and pressing e on the kernel selection screen to remove it if it causes any issues.

Edit: not sure if this one would be covered by powertop --auto-tune already!

4

Thanks a lot for your input! Have implemented this on two notebooks, and it seems to bring down power consumption even further, have seen idle consumption for as low as 6-9W on this XPS15.

Meanwhile I wonder if the powersave governor gives any improvement, with the long interval measurements of powertop it is kind of difficult to discern.

5

As always, please check with your hardware manufacturer and make sure the BIOS is updated.