Disable dedicated Nvidia graphic card

Question

i have a laptop (Schenker S403) and installed KUbuntu 18.04. Previously I have 17.10 with no problems. I disabled the graphic card in the NVidia-x-server-settings.

Now my laptop runs hot and the fan spins nonstop although I also disabled it in the new installation (no upgrade but a toal new installation) Investigating I found and did some stuff:

• My CPU governor is on powersafe on AC and DC.
• I have tlp up and running.
• prime-select query : intel
• Nvidia X Server Settings shows Intel as the choice (power saving mode)

BUT:

 nopinger@my-laptop ~ lspci
+00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series USB xHCI HC (rev 04)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series HECI #0 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series HD Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev e4)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev e4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev e4)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev e4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series USB EHCI #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series SMBus Controller (rev 04)
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev 73)
03:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8411B PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
03:00.1 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
04:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 745M] (rev a1)

So there seems to be a problem, because the 3D controller is still NVIDIA stuff And really, PowerTOP shows a 100% usage of the graphics card:

100,0%        PCI-Gerät: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 745M]

How can I totally disable this stuff? It drains my battery and the fan is noisy af because of it.

The only useful answer I found is: How can I uninstall a nvidia driver completely ?

And it is quite old, nvidia-common doesn't exist (anymore).

UPDATE 1: I did the following things:

• uninstalled everything from nvidia (zsh, therefore "")

  sudo apt purge "nvidia*"

• blacklisted nouveau driver (Can't disable nouveau drivers in Ubuntu 18.04):

nopinger@my-laptop ~ cat /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf | grep nouveau
blacklist nouveau
blacklist lbm-nouveau
alias nouveau off
alias lbm-nouveau off

then updated (sudo update-initramfs -u)

• updated grub to:

nopinger@my-laptop ~ cat /etc/default/grub | grep nouveau
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nouveau.runpm=0 nouveau.modeset=0"

then updated grub (sudo update-grub)

• rebooted

Result:

• Powertop show no change, the card has a 100% usage
• 3D Controller is also unchanged

I don't understand how it is still working in a way.

Answer 1

I've been battling the same issue for quite some time now and no answer in sight.

I did however install tlp and powertop and I've noticed a funny thing:

When you run sudo powertop --auto-tune and then sudo powertop for me it shows nvidia card to 0%.

• Later Edit *

It is all related to tunables in powertop more specifically "Sata link power management" which TLP does not activate by default. When that is set the card seems to power off.