Hey, nix noob here. I ran ubuntu on my system for about a year and it ran cool with not at all noisy fans. I’m aware ubuntu uses the powersave mode for the cpu.
Ever since I installed nix my laptops been running a bit hotter than normal and the fan gos crazy when I play a video on youtube or do something remotely intensive.
I don’t have a great battery life yet and will check your options (t460p user here), but here are the relevant bits of my config to make it a little better:
Now, it runs a bit more cool with quite fans when unplugged (powersave mode) but when its connected to AC and its running on performance mode it runs really hot and loud still. (a bit less so than before i must say tho)
However it still run considerably louder than ubuntu or arch. With those the laptop was completely silent most of the time. With nixOS it still turns on the fans on when opening the web browser.
I have these config on my ThinkPad X1E2 (i7 9750H). I think the power consumption is quite great, only 6-8W when running on Intel GPU, low brightness with a chrome brower and some terminal open.
boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_latest;
boot.kernelParams = ["intel_pstate=disable"];
services.tlp = {
enable = true;
extraConfig = ''
START_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0=75
STOP_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0=80
CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_AC=schedutil
CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_BAT=schedutil
CPU_SCALING_MIN_FREQ_ON_AC=800000
CPU_SCALING_MAX_FREQ_ON_AC=3500000
CPU_SCALING_MIN_FREQ_ON_BAT=800000
CPU_SCALING_MAX_FREQ_ON_BAT=2300000
# Enable audio power saving for Intel HDA, AC97 devices (timeout in secs).
# A value of 0 disables, >=1 enables power saving (recommended: 1).
# Default: 0 (AC), 1 (BAT)
SOUND_POWER_SAVE_ON_AC=0
SOUND_POWER_SAVE_ON_BAT=1
# Runtime Power Management for PCI(e) bus devices: on=disable, auto=enable.
# Default: on (AC), auto (BAT)
RUNTIME_PM_ON_AC=on
RUNTIME_PM_ON_BAT=auto
# Battery feature drivers: 0=disable, 1=enable
# Default: 1 (all)
NATACPI_ENABLE=1
TPACPI_ENABLE=1
TPSMAPI_ENABLE=1
'';
};
I prefer to keep the fan running at minimum speed instead of no spinning at all. Sometime you need to run some heavy stuff and the CPU become hot, so it draw more power and become hotter and so on. With the fan is on, I can keep the laptop at 31C-33C compared to 38C-43C when the fan is off (I tested this in Ubuntu). My problem with NixOS is that the fan is not spinning even if the temp is 55C. I tried thinkfan but only can only control 1 fan. I’m hoping the linux kernel 5.8 could solve that problem: Linux 5.8 Will Finally Be Able To Control ThinkPad Laptops With Dual Fans - Phoronix.
Unfortunately, current Nvidia dkms can not be compiled with kernel 5.8