Manually disabling video card in win7 question about power

[adamantinepiggy]

So I have a EVGA GTX295 and while it's still plenty of video card for my gaming needs, the fact I rarely have time to game anymore means that I'm burning a lot more power than need to for the majority of stuff I do. The GTX 295 isn't exactly a miser with power even when not gaming, neither is it very quiet.

I just happen to have a ASUS 5450 no-fan silent 1gig 5450 lying around doing nothing. So.. the question becomes, can I add this in with the gtx295, plug my monitors into this card, and then disable the GTX295 in the device manager to save power on the 6 of 7 weekly days I am not gaming? Figure, I'd just re-enable it (and swap my monitor attachments) when I do want to game. I don't know whether disabling the GXT295 would actually turn it off or not or at least to a lower state of power usage and if I'm lucky, shut down the on-board fan too. Anyone know? Of course I could just swap it out completely, but that's too much hassle.

Or perhaps, Win7 is smart enought to turn off the GTX295 if I'm hooked up to the 5450 but not actively using the GTX295?? Kinda doubt it though..

Yeah the 5450 is a slow boat HTPC type vid card, but since most of the time anymore, I'm mostly doing minor stuff, the low power and no-fan noise is kinda drawing me. I've had the GTX295 for a long time and it's been an outstanding card. Don't feel the need to upgrade as I only game at 1920 x 1080 anyway, but this card does suck up the electricity even at idle..

So just curious if this idea has any merit or not.

 

[happy medium]

Why not just disable sli? I don't think a single gtx260 consumes much power unless your gamming.

 

[thilanliyan]

The card won't be "shut off" unfortunately. It will still be using idle power.

 

[dualsmp]

I think the only thing you can do is manually downclock on your GTX295 as low as it can go with Rivatuner or a similar program. Pretty sure it would still draw power even disabling it in device manager. It's possible it might even use more power disabling it without looking at a watt meter since the video drivers can control power management, so if you disable it might go back to a default power state.

Windows isn't smart enough to turn one card on and one off. Basically your kinda stuck with pulling the card every time your not gaming.

It would be a nice feature though if Windows could actively switch between two discreet cards, or one discreet and one integrated. The power savings could be farily significant if Windows was able to do it.

 

[adamantinepiggy]

Why not just disable sli? I don't think a single gtx260 consumes much power unless your gamming.

According to the review websites, the GTX295 idles at around 180-200 watts depending on who is doing the review. Unfortunately, they make no distinction on whether SLI being enabled or not changes the idle power requirements. As the single GTX260 is supposed to be around 155 watts idle, there's not a ton difference even if only one GPU on the gtx295 card is active --> of course this is relative to the 5450 at around 7 watts idle and 20 watts load.

My attraction to having the 5450 in and the GTX295 disabled (assuming it actually goes into a much lower power state turns off when disabled in the device manager) is not having an extra three 60watt light bulbs worth of heat and waste when I'm doing simple stuff like browsing the internet or watching netflix. I still want it available without having to go through a big changeout hassle if I want to play a game here and there though.

Edit: While I was writing this, 2 people chimed in that I'm probably SOL.. Darn... would been nice..

 

[Kenmitch]

Edit: While I was writing this, 2 people chimed in that I'm probably SOL.. Darn... would been nice..

Guess you could just pull the power plugs on the GTX295 and pop them back in when your need the card. Semi hassle but would give you the option to use the lower power card with the ability to switch back to the GTX when needed. Not like you'd have to swap cards in and out.

 

[thilanliyan]

^I don't know if that would work. I tried that and my computer wouldn't boot as it gave me the beeps stating a video card error.

 

[adamantinepiggy]

Guess you could just pull the power plugs on the GTX295 and pop them back in when your need the card. Semi hassle but would give you the option to use the lower power card with the ability to switch back to the GTX when needed. Not like you'd have to swap cards in and out.

This did work. Not exactly how I'd hope (being able to do it in the OS) but it did work and is much less hassle than completely taking out and replacing the card each time.

Power Plug Testing results:

1. If I only had in the 295GTX and pulled out the power plugs before bootup, I got the beeping video card error. Once I put the 5450 inthe second slot, PC would not give the video beep error and boot just fine.

2. If I had the 5450 and the 295GTX both working when I went into Windows and simply disabled the 295GTX in the device manager, it does not truly turn off. The fan would still be spinning and the back of the board remained pretty warm (like normal temp warm), which I assume meant it was consuming normal power.

3. If I put in the 5450 in addition to the 295GTX with pulled-out power plugs, the PC would boot fine, recognize the 5450 and everything works. The 295GTX card (or at lest the majority of it) was completely off, even the fan was off. Now if I pushed the power plugs back in while it's running, the 295GTX card turns back on (as in fan spinning and getting warm again), but unfortunately, windows will not see the card even if I force a scan of new devices in the device manager. 5450 continues to operate fine.

4. If I have both the 5450 and the 295GTX working in Windows and I pull the 295GTX power plugs and then push them back in while windows is up, Windows cannot make the card turn on again. This is even if I disable and re-enable the 295GTX in device manager before and after I pull out the power plugs, Windows still cannot turn the card back on. Windows video via the 5450 video card is unaffected by my 295GTX power plug shenannigans as long as monitors are connected to the 5450. Once I reboot, the 295GTX works again.


So in summary, I can now at least use the low power 5450 for my normal Internet or video watching actvities that doesn't require any real GPU power by simply pulling the power plugs from the 295GTX versus pulling the card out completely. Unfortunately I can't do it in software, but pulling the two power plugs is a helluva lot easier to deal with than taking out the entire card. When I do want to game, all I have to do then is plug in the 295GTX power plugs and reboot. If I had to physically swap out the card each time I would not bother, but pulling out the plugs is bearable. The slight reduction in noise, since the 5450 has no fan, is also a nice bonus.

Maybe, I'll head down to the auto store and get a couple of 25 amp auto switches and wire them inline with the PCIe video power plug 12V power wires. Would make switching the power to the 295GTX even easier especially if I attached them to side panel or something.

This might seem to be more trouble than it's worth, but I never turn off my computer and the difference between a 180+ watt idle and a 7 watt idle is pretty significant in power over time.

My current system: Intel 980X, Thermaltake 1200 watt PSU, ASROCK Extreme, 18GB RAM, EVGA 295GTX, ASUS 5450, 256GB C300 boot SSD, two 256GB C300 in software RAID0 (for my games that I don't have time enough to play anymore) and a couple TByte hard drives.