Why is my NUC8i7BEH using 40W just for showing YT video?

[muctop7]

I run a NUC8i7BEH with Mint 21.1 Cinnamon

CPU: quad core Intel Core i7-8559U (-MT MCP-) speed/min/max: 468/400/4500 MHz
Kernel: 5.15.0-58-generic x86_64
Mem: 6414.1/7814.1 MiB (82.1%)
Storage: 931.52 GiB (29.2% used) M2 SSD
Procs: 288
Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.13

On idle ( 2 screen with firefox browser 109.0 running )
my entire desktop system is consuming 80W on 230V AC:

2 screen à 24" one on HDMI 3840x2160@30,
the other with a Thunderbolt3/USB-C to DP cable 3840x2160@60,
16x switch, a LED clock, etc

If I press play button in Firefox youtube window,(no fullscreen)
power consumption is rising from 80W to 120 W !!??
It's not only power consumption but the noise, which is disturbing.

Speakers off, no matter which of my displays is used to play YT.
No matter if Window or fullscreen, if FullHD or 480.

NUC is getting hot and fan starts running.
If I press video stop, power is going down to 80W again and fan is stopping !
Imagine if my phone used 40W for simply running YT?

Linux mint is installed straight ahead.
I´m just a user, not a geek on linux.

I choosed a NUC as a wide spread brand,
expecting best support for running linux,
best durability and lasting to use.

[acerimusdux]

In your Firefox browser, click Settings, then near the bottom, where it says Performance, make sure "Use recommended performance settings" is checked.

Then, maybe post the output of

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inxi -Fxxz

Just to see that nothing is unusual there.

[acerimusdux]

Maybe also install powertop:

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sudo apt install powertop

I'm have a NUC10i3FNB and powertop is showing it using <5 watts even with a youtube video running. CPU temperature indicator app in Cinnamon shows 80 degrees celsius. Closing Youtube it drops to <3 watts and 72 degrees celsius. I don't think I've done anything to it, other than maybe tweaking some settings in the firmware.

[muctop7]

Thank you @acerimusdux !

Interesting output of inxi:
I installed my LG Monitor portrait left turned 2160x3840 on DP connection over USB-C !
And the ASUS in landscape 3840x2160 on HDMI connection.
Both video lines over KVM switches with a win10 PC.


top@top-NUC8i7BEH:~$ inxi -Fxxz
System:
Kernel: 5.15.0-58-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.3.0
Desktop: Cinnamon 5.6.7 tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: muffin dm: LightDM
Distro: Linux Mint 21.1 Vera base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
Type: Mini-pc System: Intel Client Systems product: NUC8i7BEH v: J72992-306
serial: <superuser required> Chassis: Intel Corporation type: 35 v: 2.0
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Intel model: NUC8BEB v: J72688-306 serial: <superuser required>
UEFI: Intel v: BECFL357.86A.0085.2020.1007.1917 date: 10/07/2020
Battery:
Device-1: hidpp_battery_12 model: Logitech M585/M590 Multi-Device Mouse
serial: <filter> charge: 100% (should be ignored) status: Discharging
Device-2: hidpp_battery_13 model: Logitech K800 serial: <filter>
charge: 70% (should be ignored) status: Discharging
CPU:
Info: quad core model: Intel Core i7-8559U bits: 64 type: MT MCP
arch: Coffee Lake rev: A cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB L3: 8 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 487 high: 500 min/max: 400/4500 cores: 1: 500 2: 500
3: 500 4: 402 5: 500 6: 500 7: 500 8: 500 bogomips: 43198
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel CoffeeLake-U GT3e [Iris Plus Graphics 655] driver: i915
v: kernel ports: active: DP-1,DP-2 empty: HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0
chip-ID: 8086:3ea5
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 6850x4384 s-dpi: 168
Monitor-1: DP-1 pos: primary,bottom-r model: Asus PB287Q res: 4384x2466
dpi: 179 diag: 708mm (27.9")
Monitor-2: DP-2 pos: primary,top-left model: LG (GoldStar) HDR 4K
res: 2466x4384 dpi: 184 diag: 690mm (27.2")
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 (CFL GT3)
v: 4.6 Mesa 22.2.5 direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Cannon Point-LP High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9dc8
Device-2: C-Media CM108 Audio Controller type: USB
driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid bus-ID: 1-3.2.4:44
chip-ID: 0d8c:013c
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-58-generic running: yes
Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
Device-1: Intel Cannon Point-LP CNVi [Wireless-AC] driver: iwlwifi
v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:9df0
IF: wlp0s20f3 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Intel Ethernet I219-V driver: e1000e v: kernel port: N/A
bus-ID: 00:1f.6 chip-ID: 8086:15be
IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Intel Bluetooth 9460/9560 Jefferson Peak (JfP) type: USB
driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-10:3 chip-ID: 8087:0aaa
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: <filter>
bt-v: 3.0 lmp-v: 5.1 sub-v: 100
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 931.52 GiB used: 284.98 GiB (30.6%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB
size: 465.76 GiB speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> temp: 37.9 C
ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Crucial model: CT500MX200SSD1 size: 465.76 GiB
speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 456.89 GiB used: 90.68 GiB (19.8%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 8.1 MiB (1.6%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 1.55 GiB (77.4%) priority: -2
file: /swapfile
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 53.0 C pch: 54.0 C mobo: 27.8 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
Processes: 292 Uptime: 9d 3h 1m Memory: 7.63 GiB used: 5.75 GiB (75.4%)
Init: systemd v: 249 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.3.0 alt: 11/9
Packages: 2854 apt: 2825 flatpak: 29 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16
running-in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.13

[muctop7]

Hi @acerimusdux !

Firefox settings is checked, as you proposed.

Tnx fr recommendation of powertop.
.html output is too big 95k to add here

[acerimusdux]

Well I don't see anything wrong really in the inxi output. I thought maybe there would be something with the graphics configuration, but you have the right driver (i915), Xorg has modesetting, and Mesa has direct render. That all looks pretty much the same as mine.

You are running two high resolution displays, though. And running a 6850x4384 virtual screen there at 168 dpi, with the monitors both at 4384x2466; while I've only got a single 24" monitor running at 1920x1080-60hz, 96 s-dpi. The other thing I see is your RAM usage is high, and even using the swap quite a bit. I've got a 2GB swap, but it never really gets used. But I also have 16 GB RAM installed.

On these systems with integrated graphics, the video makes a lot of use of the system RAM, so I expect you are just really stressing your graphics performance with those high resolutions. So you might benefit from adding RAM. Your temperatures were fine at the time of running inxi, but you probably weren't stressing it at the moment.

If you run

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sudo powertop

you enter an interactive powertop screen. The first overview page there will show what processes are estimated to be using the most power. It will probably be a lot of firefox processes. If you tab over to Device Stats, it will show an estimate there of System Baseline Power usage, and then list the devices using the most power, probably CPU core, CPU misc, and DRAM.

[muctop7]

Tnx a lot !

That's it =>> screen resolution and RAM usage !!!!!

I reduced to 1920x1080 on both, and power waste is gone.
Only 2-3W more as a quiet desktop.


Maybe I'm looking for another 8GB memory board
And then test again on higher resolutions

On my Win10 machine I have 32G and a dedicated GPU,
but Iḿ trying to save power now and use the NUC
for every day purpose like surfing the net