Underclocking graphics card in a Linux Server

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I recently built myself a new Linux Server with a Core 2 Duo 1,83 GHz CPU and a nVidia GeForce 7200LE graphics card, which was the cheapest passively cooled card I could find. I've measured power draw of the system and it seems to draw about 95 Watts.

The graphics card seems to generate quite a bit of heat though, I don't even have a monitor, mouse or keyboard connected to the machine so this seems quite unnecessary.

Can I underclock or even power down the graphics card somehow to conserve energy?

Update: After removing the graphics card and undervolting the CPU from 1.25V to 1.1V (seems stable), power usage has dropped to 70 Watts. Thanks everyone.

zidar

Posted 2009-08-03T11:04:51.197

Reputation: 538

shouldn't this be on serverfault? – zpesk – 2009-08-03T17:36:57.260

Answers

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There is a tool called nvclock which can adjust the clock for Nvidia cards.

It only works if you use the proprietary nvidia driver.

There is a debian/ubuntu package called nvclock and GUIs for KDE nvclock-qt and GNOME nvclock-gtk.

Ludwig Weinzierl

Posted 2009-08-03T11:04:51.197

Reputation: 7 695

The server does not have x installed as I'm not intending to use it for any such purpose, do I still need to install the proprietary nVidia driver somehow? – zidar – 2009-08-03T11:15:01.157

nvclock depends only on libc, libx11 and libxext. The description says: "The official binary nVidia drivers are required for accesses other than by root.". So, chances are good, but the only way to find a definitive answer is to give it a try. – Ludwig Weinzierl – 2009-08-03T11:50:59.777

It worked, but it really didn't do much, temperature hardly dropped at all and I saved at most 3-4 Watts of power. – zidar – 2009-08-03T17:08:20.107

@weazl: It's a pity, but I guess it was worth a try. – Ludwig Weinzierl – 2009-08-03T18:43:31.547

Asked: 2009-08-03T11:04:51.197

Viewed: 2 683 times

Active: 2009-09-10T15:26:54.863