Does disabling the open-source NVIDIA driver (nouveau) help in power saving

[mandyan]

I am using an Acer Nitro 5 Laptop with NVIDIA GTX 1050 discrete graphics. I intend not to use the proprietary NVIDIA drivers. Am pretty much happy with the Intel's i915 driver (Tear free + Hardware accelerated video decoding). Am curious to know, will disabling the open source NVIDIA driver (nouveau) result in power saving in the laptop? or is there anything else I can do which will completely disable the discrete graphics which should result in power saving?

Thanks for your help.

[Hoser Rob]

...s. I intend not to use the proprietary NVIDIA drivers. ....

Why the heck not? Your computer, like any other, is already chock full of proprietary firmware. What difference would using a closed Nvidia driver make?

[kc1di]

Don't think the GPU driver will have a great affect on power consumption - install tlp it will do more.

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sudo apt install tlp

[richyrich]

If you use this terminal command: inxi -Gx, you will see that the Intel driver is in use, and that the nouveau driver (and others) is "unloaded". Meaning it has not been loaded into the kernel.

So, no worries! Already done!

[mandyan]

...s. I intend not to use the proprietary NVIDIA drivers. ....

Why the heck not? Your computer, like any other, is already chock full of proprietary firmware. What difference would using a closed Nvidia driver make?

In fact, I tried installing NVIDIA proprietary drivers initially. Unfortunately, am unable to remove the horrible screen tearing completely even after so many configuration trial and errors, tried various solutions posted on Linux forums. Hence I made that decision.

[kc1di]

please post the output of

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uname -r

and

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inix -Fxz

[mandyan]

please post the output of

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uname -r

and

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inix -Fxz

Output of uname -r: 4.10.0-38-generic

Output of inix -Fxz:

Graphics: Card-1: Intel Device 591b bus-ID: 00:02.0
Card-2: NVIDIA Device 1c8d bus-ID: 01:00.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 driver: intel Resolution: 1920x1080@60.03hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 630 (Kaby Lake GT2)
GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.2.8 Direct Rendering: Yes