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as the title says, I'm having trouble getting Ubuntu running with acceptable performance (really any Linux distribution I tried, but Ubunutu is especially slow). The main problem I is everything I do becomes really slow when using Microsoft Teams or IntelliJ Idea. Both are causing high CPU usage not only after startup (i.e. also after indexing etc. of IntelliJ), but every time I do anything in one of the programs. At first I thought it's a problem with Microsoft Teams, but I had the same issue also with Zoom and Teams web clients.

I'm using the Lenovo Thinkpad P14s:

  • 15.3 GiB Memory
  • Intel Core i7-10510U CPU @ 1.80GHz x 8
  • NVIDIA Corporation GP108GLM [Quadro P520] / Quadro P520/PCIe/SSE2 Grahics and the std. Intel Graphics onboard chip.
  • As OS I'm using Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS 64-bit.

Drivers and other information:

From inxi -Fxz I get:

System:
  Kernel: 5.8.0-40-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
  Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.18.5 Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa) 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-10510U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake rev: C L2 cache: 8192 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 36799 
  Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 400/4900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 
  3: 800 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP108GLM [Quadro P520] driver: nvidia v: 460.32.03 
  bus ID: 2d:00.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting,nvidia 
  unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz, 1920x1200~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Quadro P520/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 460.32.03 
  direct render: Yes 

I also tried different OS (Linux Mint with both Cinnamon and MATE, Pop!_os since people on the internet claim it has good Nvidia Graphics support or something, and I also tried KDE Plasma desktop for Ubuntu as well as standart desktop. On some of these OS the general performance was good except when using Microsoft Teams (it really kills the performance). But the performance with Teams (or Zoom web) is really bad on all of them. I also have Windows 10 partition, everything is running fine there.

I tried a lot of stuff so far, which is why I think the above information matter. Anyone any idea? Is it possible, that (despite inxi reporting the Nvidia graphics are used) only the processor is used for graphics? If so, how can I change it. Also is there any option to force Teams/Idea to use Intel graphics (while keeping the Nvidia card as 'main')?

If you need any additional information, I will provide.

Thanks in advance!

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  • If you’re using Teams as an application, that thing is a pig on resources and crashes more often than one should tolerate. What I have found is that the Teams website is much better when running in a browser. It consumes very little CPU and the browser tab weighs in at about 400MB during a video meeting. Screen sharing is hit and miss, but works some of the time.
    – user1091774
    Jan 25, 2021 at 12:19
  • I'd also check your logs to see if there's something else going on. A very easy way to do this is to install ksystemlog. It only pulls in a few dependencies and is a great GUI way to view your logs. You'd be looking for errors, most specifically for errors that keep repeating.
    – KGIII
    Jan 25, 2021 at 17:10
  • @matigo Thanks, I will try. But I also struggle with IntelliJ Idea being very slow and CPU intensive, even if Teams is not running. It gets worse with Teams running, of course. Jan 26, 2021 at 11:55
  • Having the same issue with my p15s. When I switch to the nouveau driver, it flies. Framerate via glxgears drops tremendously, but I can have 8 intellij windows, zoom, browser loaded with tabs, slack, etc going and no problems. Switch back to the nvidia driver and it falls apart, can barely type at times. Feb 1, 2021 at 18:38

2 Answers 2

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I kind of "solved it".

On Ubuntu I wasn't able to find the cause of this on Ubuntu. After messing around with grub (you apparently shouldn't do that), I was not able to boot Ubuntu anymore. It stuck at

dev/sda5: clean, xxx/xxx files, xxx/xxx blocks

So I gave up and installed Arch. There I had a different problem (or maybe the same, but this time I identified it?): running inxi -G showed both GPU's (Nvidia Quadro and intel UHD) with correct drivers but the OpenGL renderer was set to the Intel one instead of Nvidia's. Also, despite running Teams and IntelliJ Idea with prime-run, the load on the Nvidia card was at 4% (I found out running nvidia-smi -i 0) while the load on the Intel card was really high all the time (I found out running intel_gpu_top, load at ENGINE Renderer/3D/0 70% when doing things like scrolling in a window). I tried to set the Nvidia card as the renderer and the intel one as sink with

xrandr --setprovideroffloadsink 1 0 which gave an error:

X Error of failed request:  BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)
  Major opcode of failed request:  140 (RANDR)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  34 (RRSetProviderOffloadSink)
  Value in failed request:  0x218
  Serial number of failed request:  16
  Current serial number in output stream:  17

I tried reinstalling drivers and stuff, but that also didn't help. Finally, I installed optimus-manager from pacman and ran

optimus-manager --switch nvidia

After a reboot in runs smoothly.

inxi -G now shows:

Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel 
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP108GLM [Quadro P520] driver: nvidia v: 460.32.03 
  Device-3: IMC Networks Integrated Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 driver: loaded: modesetting,nvidia 
  resolution: 1: 1920x1200~60Hz 2: 1920x1200~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Quadro P520/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 460.32.03 

The load on the intel card dropped to 10% max. I still switched to Teams Web Client like pointed out by @Matigo. That still helps. Thanks, and hope somebody finds this useful.

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Lenovo provides a PDF, with BIOS settings prior to the installation:

https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/tp_p15_p17_p1_gen3_ubuntu_20.04_lts_installation_v1.0.pdf

At the end of the PDF it covers also the steps to get the NVIDIA card working... I haven't tested it by myself, but I'm planning to buy a p15s model. Hopefully, that helps in your case.

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