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
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
sensorsand you can see your GPU temperature withnvidia-smi.