Nvidia-smi drain "Failed to modify the GPU drain state." with RTX A2000 on Debian 12

Graphics / Linux Linux
1

Hi all,

I’m trying to power off one RTX A2000 to save power.
This GPU is in a Debian 12 VM, and is running great.

I’m trying this:
nvidia-smi -i 00:07.0 --persistence-mode=0 → works all fine
nvidia-smi drain -p 0000:07.0.0 -m 1 → doesn’t work, says “Failed to modify the GPU drain state.”

Any idea to make it works?
Thanks a lot!

2

You need root priviledges for nvidia-smi drain - so either run the command with sudo prefixed or switch to root via su root beforehand.