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I have a laptop with a Nvidia GeForce MX130 and an Intel i5-8250U. I'm using the Nvidia driver 440. When the laptop uses the battery, it works fine, but just when I plug the charger everything slows down. Even some "normal tasks" (like some Gnome animations, etc) get a little laggy. On games (which is the main use I give the Nvidia GPU) there's a considerable drop in FPS.

So, the question is, how can I fix this? Is there a way to trick Nvidia Driver so it is always working in battery mode? Maybe any other idea?

I appreciate your help in advance.

$ lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display'
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 620 (rev 07)
    Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] UHD Graphics 620
    Kernel driver in use: i915
    Kernel modules: i915
--
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM108M [GeForce MX130] (rev a2)
    Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] GM108M [GeForce MX130]
    Kernel driver in use: nvidia
    Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia

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This is just an informed guess, but on battery power your GPU is probably throttled down automatically, but on AC power it may be overheating, and that may result in even more throttling.

Alternately, being on AC the charging battery, and increased CPU clockrate are going to increase the internal heat generation, and the overall internal temperature inside the chassis is probably hampering the cooling of the GPU.

From the command line, you can see your ambient temperature with sensors and you can see your GPU temperature with nvidia-smi.

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  • I realize this isn't an answer, but at least will give you some insight into whether it can be fixed at all. Improving ambient cooling in your laptop may be difficult.
    – Rich
    Feb 8, 2020 at 18:25
  • At first I also thought this was a thermal throttling situation but is not. I have exactly the same temperatures when my laptop is plugged in or using the battery when I play games like Outlast in Steam. (Usually from 65ºC to 75ºC). It's really weird to hear the fan at it's max speed, and what really confuses me is that everything slows down at the exact moment I plug in my laptop. Feb 8, 2020 at 19:33
  • I found this: nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/gaming-rigs/8/255524/… Is it possible that for that game, the better performing GPU is the Intel one, and when you go battery powered, your machine switches to the lower-power consuming Intel GPU? Worth a check to see if you're using the same GPU for both cases, plugged and unplugged.
    – Rich
    Feb 8, 2020 at 22:53
  • Nope, the Intel GPU can barely handle Outlast (at Mid Quality settings), no matter if the laptop is plugged or unplugged. And this only happens with the Nvidia GPU. Since I'm using the official Nvidia Driver, is only possible to use one GPU at the same time (optimus technology is not available on GNU Linux). That's how I'm pretty sure this only happens with the Nvidia GPU. Feb 9, 2020 at 0:15

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