I’m sure I’m one of the first consumers actually running the RTX 3090 on Linux, so I understand that all the issues may not have been caught. And we definitely have one here. Idle power usage is over 100W at all times. That’s insanity. I know this is a power-hungry GPU, that’s all well and good, b…

As one of the first people to report on this, I was ecstatic when I heard the newest driver contained a fix. Alas, it literally changed nothing. To reiterated my setup, I have an RTX 3090 that I’ve had since like 930 AM on launch day (camped at Micro Center), and I have two identical model monitors…

Same, it’s only partially fixed. I can hit lowest power level now but have to lower all my aux monitors to 60hz. Seems like they need to take whatever they changed for 515.76 and adjust it a little more. You might not have to drop one monitor all the way to 60hz, you might be able to do something …

Hey, I think 515.76 has completely fixed the problem for me. Both monitors are running at 144Hz and power consumption is only 26W. Memory clock is no longer stuck at 19002Mhz. emerald :: ~ » xrandr -q Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 4000 x 2560, maximum 32767 x 32767 HDMI-0 disconnected (normal …

Unfortunately this bug still occurs if the card begins GPU decoding of any video. Nvidia-SMI output while decoding a single 1080p x264 video: Fri Oct 7 18:56:49 2022 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NVIDIA-SMI 515.76 Driver Version: 51…

It appears that the issue is still in 520.56.06 (using a 4090) $ xrandr -q Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 7680 x 1440, maximum 32767 x 32767 HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) DP-0 connected 2560x1440+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 598mm x 336mm 2560…

@gardotd426 @TheGlorian @mev Can you please confirm if you have GSYNC/Adaptive sync enabled monitors when you see high power Draw and the behavior on windows if you disable gsync via nvidia control panel. Do you see high power draw then.

I am only able to test for linux, but I’ve included some interesting observations at the end that might help narrow down the problem. All 3 of my monitors are GSYNC capable, but it is disabled (I think?). These are the settings related to GSYNC in nvidia-settings used during testing for my previou…

@mev just FYI the second screenshot you posted shows that nvidia-settings has GSYNC “enabled,” at least your monitor labeled DP-0: [Screenshot_20221108_113015] However, its not like it matters. @amrits I’m certain you already know that no one here can actually use GSYNC while having more than one…

Having the same issue with my 3090 on Windows 11. My setup is 3 monitors, 1x60hz and 2x144hz. Changing one of them to 120hz fixed it for me, but that was before I enabled HDR and now it’s constantly using performance level 0 pulling 105W at idle.

[BUG Report] Idle Power Draw is ASTRONOMICAL with RTX 3090

Graphics / Linux Linux

gardotd426 October 29, 2022, 2:38pm 29

Yeah I’m on the latest 520 driver and it’s still the same old bullsh*t

Topic		Replies	Views
575: 3090 idling at over 100 Watts Linux ubuntu , headless	18	969	July 19, 2025
NVIDIA driver has a habit of keeping my GPU at the highest performance level Linux	25	7367	February 21, 2026
Very(!) slow ramp down from high to low clock speeds leading to a significantly increased power cons Linux	158	28810	February 6, 2024
Increased idle consumption with driver 570 Linux	25	5186	June 23, 2025
Limited clock for the new RTX3090Ti + Ubuntu 20.04 CUDA Programming and Performance	14	3596	December 5, 2022
If you have GPU clock boost problems, please try __GL_ExperimentalPerfStrategy=1 Linux	56	29532	May 31, 2023
RTX 3090: GPU has fallen off the bus (only Linux, on Windows everything is fine) Linux	8	2685	March 4, 2024
GPU is stuck to maximun power state at idle when using multiple monitors Drivers - Linux, Windows, MacOS power , hdmi , linux , driver , nvidia-smi , linux-driver , windows-driver	15	3552	November 4, 2025
Has anyone been able to run an RTX 3060 laptop GPU at more than 80W on Linux? Linux	110	43193	March 13, 2024
High idle power consumption in headless server without monitor connected Linux hw , ubuntu , linux , linux-driver	5	1655	November 17, 2025

[BUG Report] Idle Power Draw is ASTRONOMICAL with RTX 3090

Related topics