Arch Linux

Herbalist

Member

Registered: 2014-01-12

Posts: 58

Disabling discrete nvidia graphics on 1st generation optimus laptop

I have an old asus laptop with a dual gpu, an nvidia gt740M and an integrated intel one.
There's no option to disable the nvidia gpu from the bios menu in the laptop.

$lspci
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 740M] (rev a1)

I tried to disable the nvidia card from loading by creating an xorg.conf file with the following values

Section "Device"
Identifier "intel"
Driver "modesetting"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection 

on next boot I ran sensors to check the temps, it gave the following output

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0:  +54.0°C  (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 0:        +49.0°C  (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1:        +54.0°C  (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)

asus-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
cpu_fan:     2300 RPM
temp1:        +51.0°C  

acpitz-acpi-0
Adapter: ACPI interface
temp1:        +51.0°C  (crit = +108.0°C)

nouveau-pci-0100
Adapter: PCI adapter
GPU core:    850.00 mV (min =  +0.81 V, max =  +1.12 V)
temp1:        +42.0°C  (high = +95.0°C, hyst =  +3.0°C)
                   (crit = +105.0°C, hyst =  +5.0°C)
                   (emerg = +135.0°C, hyst =  +5.0°C)

does nouveau-pci-0100 mean that nouveau driver is being used to handle the dual graphics.
I have not installed any packages out of the following nouveau, nvidia, nvidia-utils, bumblebee or bbswitch
Is nnouveau installed by default, and is there a better way to handle the integrated gpu and have an improved power management.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,365

Re: Disabling discrete nvidia graphics on 1st generation optimus laptop

nouveau should disable the card pretty well, if you want to be sure use bbswitch and blacklist nouveau: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bu … management