Arch Linux

developej

Member

Registered: 2011-10-02

Posts: 68

Problem with ATI GPU

Hello all,
I installed Arch on my laptop (it's a HP dv7-6000 with intel i5 and ati 6740m). Story goes like this:

1) I couldn't start X with xf86-video-ati installed. I had to install xf86-video-intel to get it working. Now correct me if I'm wrong here, but graphics from i5 are not supposed to need drivers?

2) After I installed ...-intel, I was able to start X (gnome). But here is another issue: fans on GPU are always on. I found this:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HP … DV7-4263cl

and it says:

video

Open source ATI drivers (xf86-video-ati)

    * the PC seems to run much hotter with these drivers

My guess is that it is similar issue as with my card. So my question is should I wait for updated ...-ati drivers which will fix this issue (see the #1 on top, I was not even able to start X), or can this (fans always on and laptop getting hot) be fixed with something like laptop-tools (I did try that yesterday but failed), or if not, is it possible to completly disable ATI and use ONLY the graphics from i5.
Hope that was clear enough, I'm really tired right now
Thanks

developej

Member

Registered: 2011-10-02

Posts: 68

Re: Problem with ATI GPU

Update:

Since I have i5 (which has graphics) and ati 6740m, I tried this:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hy … ons_So_Far

and in there a way to disable ati graphics - editing rc.local with:

$ echo > /etc/modprobe.d/radeon.conf blacklist\ radeon
modprobe radeon
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

as far as I understood, it adds radeon to blacklist which prevents conflict with both video-ati and video-intel installed, it loads module on startup and it kills radeon.

I am not able to enter GDM with these settings. I think that my Intel i5 graphics are not working...it is visible in lspci | grep VGA, but after doing steps I mentiond above and typing startx I get no devices detected.

Update2:

I removed 20-radeon.conf which I created with default values (it was in wiki) and now im running gnome with ati off (I can't hear fans anymore, which is good enough for now)

Last edited by developej (2011-10-03 21:00:33)