Ardour 9.7 on Ryzen 7 7840HS causes high package power (~34W) and fan noise even with empty session and 0% DSP

#1

Hi there!

I am seeing a strange power consumption issue when launching Ardour on my Beelink SER7.

As soon as Ardour starts, CPU package power jumps immediately to around 34–36 W, CPU temperature rises to 82–84°C, and the fan ramps up.

This happens with:

  • an empty session
  • no plugins
  • no playback/recording
  • DSP meter at 0%

Closing Ardour returns the system to normal.

System

  • Beelink SER7
  • AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS with Radeon 780M Graphics
  • 32 GB RAM
  • Arch Linux
  • Kernel: 7.1.4-arch1-1
  • KDE Plasma on Wayland
  • amdgpu driver

Ardour

  • Ardour 9.7.0 (Arch package)
  • PipeWire/JACK backend
  • 48 kHz
  • even with 1024 sample buffer

The issue also happens when disconnected from JACK/PipeWire and with no audio interface connected.

CPU power

Using amd-pstate-epp:

Governor: powersave
EPP: balance-performance

sensors while Ardour is open:

amdgpu:
PPT: 34.02 W
edge: 64°C

k10temp:
Tctl: 82.1°C

Tests performed

  • Empty session every time
  • No plugins loaded
  • Disconnected JACK/PipeWire
  • Tried GDK_DISABLE_GL=1 ardour9
  • Changed audio buffer size

No change.

Ardour threads also do not show high CPU usage:

ps -eLo pid,tid,pcpu,comm | grep -i ardour

44629 44629 3.2 ArdourGUI
44629 44670 0.0 pw-ardour
44629 44671 0.0 pw-ardour

Does Ardour intentionally prevent Ryzen CPUs from entering deeper idle states while running, or could this be a regression/interaction with AMD Phoenix APUs, Wayland, or recent Arch kernels?

Any suggestions for further debugging would be appreciated.

#2

That is irrelevant. Ardour is as live mixer. The process wakes up every few ms reads incoming audio (from all devices), and the master bus runs.

This prevents the CPU from sleeping, which is usually a good thing. You want constant CPU load while doing audio work. Changing CPU frequency takes time which is a main source of audio dropouts when running at low latency.

That being said, the numbers you mention do seem excessive.

PS. there are live input meters on the recorder page.

That could also contribute to things. Ardour does not support Wayland and there are some known issues.

#3

Thanks for the clarification. You’re right — “no playback/recording” was not the right wording. I mean an empty session with no tracks, plugins, or user-initiated playback/recording.

I understand that keeping the CPU awake is expected for a live audio application. My concern is that an empty session keeps the Ryzen 7840HS at ~34–36 W PPT and 82–84°C, which seems high.

I’ll test under KDE Plasma X11 as well. Thanks for the Wayland pointer.

#4

Not sure if this’ll help but a month ago I had something similar happening on a Mac Pro (although I was dual-booting at the time into Windows). It turned out that the air vents were clogged up with dust. After I cleaned them the problem disappeared.

#5

I also tested under KDE Plasma X11 , and I’m seeing the same behavior there, so it doesn’t appear to be Wayland-specific.

The high package power (~34–36 W) and temperatures (~82–84°C) still occur with:

  • an empty session
  • no plugins
  • no playback or recording
  • no audio interface connected
  • even when not connected to JACK/PipeWire
#6

If you close Ardour does the high power and high temperature go back to normal?

#7

No such issue here on CachyOS, Phoenix APU (Ryzen 9 7940 HS, Radeon 780M Graphics).
Mate Desktop, Cachy Kernel 7.1.5-1, Ardour 9.7-1.1 (Cachy package)

  • Check with taskmanager/htop high CPU usage of some process?
  • Maybe a KDE/Plasma issue?
  • Mesa issue? Maybe check with mesa-git…?
  • Can you check with another Kernel (6.18 LTS) ?
  • Install/test another desktop (Mate, XFCE) ?
  • Install latest Ardour Nightly?
  • Check another DAW (Reaper, Qtractor) ?