Two screen connectors?

Hello good people of the internet,

I got my trusty m17x R3 a couple of years ago, and after being swooned by the idea of stereoscopic 3D I now regret that decision because of endurance concerns. Now I know there's been many, many threads asking about the iGPU and Optimus in the 3D model and apparently there is no solution. However, after taking the bloody thing apart to add ram in slot 3/4, I noticed that there were two connectors for the display. After doing my research, I found threads stating that you could give non-3D models 3D capabilities by upgrading the display to the 120Hz one, and switching the connector to the iGPU bypassed (rightmost) one. My question being, could I do the opposite and connect my display on the iGPU enabled connector, successfully enabling it and Optimus? Or is the factory 3D model somehow different from the non 3D one? I would be very grateful for any light on the subject.

Thank you

Alexandre

 

Ok The one your 3D display is plugged into is an eDP port. The spare one is LVDS. the LVDS port is a 60Hz port that links to the iGPU, the eDP doesn't. However it gets more complicated. The iGPU cannot deliver a signal through eDP so even if you plugged it in, it would not work. What you must do is to buy a non-30 display that has the LVDS cable ttached and plug that into the spare slot.

 

Yeah I was afraid that would be the answer. Thanks for the great reply mate. One quick question. The datasheet for the i7-2670QM says that the integrated graphics supports eDP;any clue as to why Dell decided to mix LVDS and eDP?

Thanks again for the info, truly appreciated.

Alexandre