Disabling the Intel GPU and Optimus

I have the AW 17 R3 with the 6700HQ and 965m, and i wanted to disable the integrated Intel gpu and work solely on the Nvidia card.

Will disabling the intel gpu from Device Manager cause any issues with the display or cause any problems during POST and/or Booting??

 

As far as I know, you cannot actually disable the Intel GPU however, you can force everything to use the Nvidia card by going to the Nvidia control panel, then under global 3D settings you'll see the option to set all applications to use the Nvidia GPU.

 

Yea i can do that from the nvidia control panel, but what i want to do is make the display render directly through the nvidia card without having to pass through the intel gpu at all, like the 120hz 3d AW m17x r4

 

I think its not possible. One of the reasons i want to get an msi or sager instead of the 17r3 w 980m


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

It's impossible. I looked into this back when optimus was a fairly new technology.
Your laptop monitor is connected to the Intel integrated graphics card, and even when the Nvidia one is used, it still acts as a pass through.
If you were to disable your integrated GPU, you won't be able to use your laptop screen anymore. And also you will never be able to see the bios screen.

You could perhaps make it work in one way. You can disable your integrated GPU in device manager. and you can use an external display. The display port and HDMI port on the alienware are direct connections to your nvidia GPU, so those will still work, but not really something I'd recommend someone to do, disabling the integrated gpu that is.

 

But assuming i use an external hdmi monitor at all times, is it safe to disable the intel gpu then?? (Laptop becomes a desktop replacement)

 

@abdullah_mag - from my experience (17R3), you won't need to disable the intel gpu since the hdmi port defaults to the nvidia gpu.

Give it a try, and confirm it in the Nvidia Control Panel -> Set Up Multiple Displays screen. And report back here.

 

As i know its not possible but you could do the next steps:

On desktop Click Right and go to Nvidia control panel , on your left side you will see a 3 or 4 options search for : Manage 3D Settings
On 3D settings manage search for global you will see a combo box with the options Auto select, Intel graphics or discrete graphics, and High performance or Nvidia graphics, select the Nvidia Graphics.
Then Apply the new settings.

Afterwards go to the Ge force Experience program, and do the following steps:

Go to Preferences, Batteryboost, And you will see a checkbox only you must un-tilde the check box and apply and you will get the nvidia card as default for any app, i do this for cuda processing with matlab.

the only issue of doing this, is if you update your driver, you will need to do all the steps.

sorry for my poor English.

Good luck

 

Don't disable the Intel GPU. You will not be able to use the laptop at all if you do. The Intel GPU is used as a pass-through for the video signals.

 

Maybe include switchable mode FN F7 like the older ones? Why is it not present in R2/R3?

 

Don''t get me wrong, I loved that feature. If you wish to get your idea to the developers you can always use ideastorm.com. I also submit this type of comments to them for them to reviewing and change for future revisions/BIOS'.

 

I doubt that it's possible with a BIOS update IF the display outputs are already hardwired to the intel iGPU.

There's no mux switch inside the motherboard.

 

Hey I found a hidden bios variable related to disabling the internal graphics on my XPS 9560.
I've started a thread as I want to get access to drive my 3d projector directly from my geforce 1060m (so it can use 3d vision which won't work with the intel passthrough)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/xps-9560-disabling-integrated-graphics.806855/#post-10563051
My question for you is do you know anything about what this Bios variable to disable internal graphics (albeit hidden) does, and if it would make the system completely unrecoverable?
As long as I can still drive my external display I'de be happy to try toggling it as I can always switch it back.

 

For CUDA only, set power management mode to Prefer Consistent Performance and that give turn on NV gpu all the time.

 

I found a way to do it on windows 10 (maybe windows 8.1), it works with MPC-HC and SVP 4
My config is :
I7 7700HQ (with iGPU)
GTX 1070 Max-Q
i can watch 4K@60FPS
- You need to connect an external monitor to your HDMI/mDisplayPort (Since it's connected on that NVIDIA)
- Then in Windows setting ==> Display, you choose, "display only on screen 2" and "make this my principal display" (if screen 2 is your external monitor). if it works, your laptop display will be off.
It will automatically disabled iGPU & Optimus to let you use full part of your GPU. But be carefull, since iGPU is deactivated, when you use explorer or start menu it's a bit laggy since it needs iGPU.
And when you finish, you just switch on laptop display by going to windows settings and "extending/duplicate" your display.

I hope it's clear and understable, if not, tell me, i'll try to explain with details

 

you could do that using an Alienware amplifier with a desktop GPU and connecting the monitor directly to the output of the desktop gpu

 

Not sure about other models, but the 17 R4 i purchased has that option on the F7. When I pressed it, a message popped up and said "High Performance Mode (Dedicated GPU Only) [REBOOT]"

 

On 17R4 the mux is present on non g-sync model.

Godsend for battery life.