My gpu usage is high for no apparent reason

Support Graphics & Display
1

my 3060 usage is high for no reason

Mon Nov 15 21:14:48 2021       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 470.63.01    Driver Version: 470.63.01    CUDA Version: 11.4     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce ...  Off  | 00000000:09:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   43C    P8    20W / 170W |    329MiB / 12050MiB |     35%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      1485      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                      82MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      1554      G   /usr/bin/gnome-shell              203MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

only xorg and gnome-shell are utilizing the gpu but it is sitting at 35% all the time

2

It’s drawing 20 Watts of power. It will be in a low power mode where it is underclocked.

I don’t think this is actually a problem?

3

even at 20W it was barely using anything while idle

4

There is always a reason and 20W on a high end GPU Card is not unusual. If you search the web about this issue then you see that this is a general problem of NVIDIA. It depends on the screen etc etc etc…

5

My 3070

Mon Nov 15 21:16:50 2021       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 470.63.01    Driver Version: 470.63.01    CUDA Version: 11.4     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce ...  Off  | 00000000:03:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   40C    P5    21W / 240W |    575MiB /  7981MiB |     26%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A       757      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                     261MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      1298      G   /usr/bin/kwin_x11                  48MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      1346      G   /usr/bin/plasmashell               69MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      1700      G   /usr/lib/firefox/firefox          157MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Compositer = OpenGL 2.0 thats Work for your Card

6

That is true. My 1660 Ti idles at around the same. However, looking at both above outputs 25 - 35% idle GPU usage with no GPU thread active does not seem normal.

Mon Nov 15 19:12:55 2021       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 495.44       Driver Version: 495.44       CUDA Version: 11.5     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce ...  Off  | 00000000:07:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| N/A   49C    P0    23W /  N/A |    684MiB /  5936MiB |      1%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      2275      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                     263MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      2340      G   /usr/bin/gnome-shell              178MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      3015      G   ...AAAAAAAAA= --shared-files       11MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      3811      G   ...AAAAAAAAA= --shared-files       13MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      3893      G   telegram-desktop                    1MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5978      G   ...gl=desktop --shared-files      211MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

FYI, nvtop is much niceer to monitor with. :wink:

Screenshot from 2021-11-15 19-16-07
Screenshot from 2021-11-15 19-16-07951×967 113 KB