Power Management on GTX 580

[mrbubbles]

I have an nVidia GTX 580 and I'm having trouble getting it to clock down with AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext.

In Windows, the card enters its lowest power state and idles around 32-38C but in OS X it never seems to clock down (based on HWMonitor.app, at least) and is stuck at its maximum 772MHz core/4GHz memory, idling at 45C.

I am using the MacMini5,1 system definition and modified AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext to properly set the GPU power state. It seem to be working, as per dmesg:

[AGPM Controller] unknownPlatform
[AGPM Controller] build GPUDict by Vendor10deDevice1080
AGPM: GPU = PEGP Initialized, Control ID 17
# Here I start a Unigine Heaven 3D bechmark
AGPM: updateGPUHwPstate(1, 0): fHwPstate = 3 fFB = 0xffffff80131a1800
AGPM: updateGPUHwPstate(): state = 1. Calling fFB->setAggressiveness()...
AGPM: GPU = PEGP G-state set to 1 from 3, ControlID = 17. SW occupancy updated.
# Here I close the benchmark
AGPM: updateGPUHwPstate(2, 0): fHwPstate = 1 fFB = 0xffffff80131a1800
AGPM: updateGPUHwPstate(): state = 2. Calling fFB->setAggressiveness()...
AGPM: GPU = PEGP G-state set to 2 from 1, ControlID = 17. SW occupancy updated.
AGPM: updateGPUHwPstate(3, 0): fHwPstate = 2 fFB = 0xffffff80131a1800
AGPM: updateGPUHwPstate(): state = 3. Calling fFB->setAggressiveness()...
AGPM: GPU = PEGP G-state set to 3 from 2, ControlID = 17. SW occupancy updated.

You can see it change states but the clocks never change. Any ideas?

System specs are GA-Z68-D3H-B3 with UEFI BIOS (no DSDT, custom SSDT for i5-2500k overclock) on Mountain Lion 10.8.2 fully updated.

I have not installed nVidia's CUDA 10.8.x drivers. Booting with GraphicsEnabler=yes.

 

[mrbubbles]

Just figured this out. Looks like with dual monitors, the card always clocks up to its maximum clock speed even if it's not under load. As soon as I unplugged a monitor, it clocked down to 50MHz within seconds. Windows recently had this problem as well until some driver updates resolved (5xx and 6xx cards only, others had a hardware limitation).

Guess I'm waiting for 10.8.3 to (hopefully) fix this then.

 

[mrbubbles]

Guess I'm waiting for 10.8.3 to (hopefully) fix this then.

Well, now that this is here I gave AGM a shot and I can't seem to get it to work at all now.

As soon as I get my dedicated graphics card recognized by AGPM, the machine will freeze on boot after "macx_swapon success". The integrated monitor displays output (the boot info) and the dedicated card's monitors remain inactive the entire time.

I have tried with and with the HD3000 kext edits, no difference. The machine works with stock AGPM and fails as soon as the info for the GTX 580 is added.

Interestingly enough, if I eliminate the IGPU/GFX0 section from the Macmini5,1 AGPM profile, it refuses to recognize the GTX 580's definition.

Edit: Okay, after TONS of testing got to the bottom of this. Discoveries:

• AGPM seems to love kernel cache, if it's there it will use it even with UseKernelCache=no, so run

  rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches

  before rebooting after having modified AGPM.
• 10.8.3 introduced a new AGPM format for Kepler (GeForce 6xx) cards. They use Heuristic -> ID=4, older cards need Heuristic -> ID=0. Using new format for old card will result in kernel panic.
• With the update to 10.8.3 it would appear AGPM for MacMini5,1 is broken and results in a freeze after macx_swapon SUCCESS no matter the setting of GE=yes/no or PCIRootUID=yes/no. No kernel panic though.
• Switching to MacPro5,1 (and moving AppleTYMCE.kext out of /S/L/E) resulting a working AGPM
• Most importantly of all, the multi-monitor power state / downclocking bug is not resolved in 10.8.3.

 

[summerayu]

Hi,

I have been wondering the same thing for over a year. Any updates on this?

Does the same problem still apply to 7xx or 6xx Kepler GPUs.

I am still using the 580 and it's quite annoying to have the GPU being hot all the time on the highest state

 

[cutterjohn]

Hi,

I have been wondering the same thing for over a year. Any updates on this?

Does the same problem still apply to 7xx or 6xx Kepler GPUs.

I am still using the 580 and it's quite annoying to have the GPU being hot all the time on the highest state

<see .signature>

Long story short, bought mid-2010 macbook pro 7,1 and found while digging for info that apparently even on real macs that freq scaling is borked under mavericks at least for nvidia cards...

I have a 670 and it exhibits the same behavior, ends up locked at max core yet still idle at relatively low temps, so it uses more power but shouldn't be thermally stressful, just a bit more costly and annoying. I haven't found a way to check the mbp 7,1 yet as all native info apps only give me cpu core temps, northbridge, batt, touchpad, hdd, and one or two other things along with a variety of voltages and fanspeed...

i.e. even though I've not thoroughly dug yet, I STRONGLY suspect that apple borked the nvidia(probably ATI) driver, hoping for a hack or actual fix as apple still has a very few models with real gpus...

 

[summerayu]

I have been hearing that NVIDIA driver has the same bug for both Windows and Linux a couple of years back. Still, Mac hasn't got fixed