N73SV-A1 issue with graphics please help.

For some reason it seems that my laptop is having trouble switching over to it's graphics card for games.

I'm trying to run Dragon Age II. It's only detecting the intel graphics adapter, not the GeForce 540.

It loads up, runs pretty warm (I can warm my room with the exhaust), game runs for about 3 minutes then it begins tearing, or going black then exiting the game 'due to an abnormal shutdown'.

I've tried to have it running in 'performance mode' but it doesn't seem to help.

Is there any way to force the laptop to run with the Nvidia chip 100% of the time instead of it switiching back and forth?

This is quite frustrating. I didn't realize it was this way or I would have bought a different machine. I wanted a dedicated graphics card, not this on/off crap.

Please help. I've updated the graphics drivers on the ASUS website.

I also have swapped out/added 12GB ram, and took out the 5400 rpm drive, replaced it with a WD 7200rpm drive.

I did a clean install with win7 64bit, then added in the drivers needed off the asus disk.

Other than this really annoying graphics card I'm liking the machine. Thanks.

 

I've read/heard of others having issues with Nvidia's Optimus technology as well, a search of the forums should pull up some threads that may shed some light on this issue for you, the N73 is an all around pretty great notebook, i have the N73JQ, same as yours minus Sandy bridge and Optimus.

 

not that i went and tested it right now but when i did i had no issues with switchable graphics. the question that i would like answered if this was returned to me for repair is "will the same issue be present on a factory machine out the box". i venture to say no. which leaves the posibility if a driver / soft issue. can you confirm the absense of this problem after windows is reinstalled?

 

Update:

I got it to work. I went into the Nvidia control panel and forced it to use the GT 540M when I run Dragon Age 2. It was set to the intel graphics adapter. Hence the problem.

It's now working quite well with no issues.

Thanks for all suggestions.

 

After the clean install, did you install ASUS Power4Gear Hybird?

The above controls three things:

1. Power settings.

2. The type of graphic display based on the power settings.

3. And, turbo meaning overstocking the CPU.

On my N61Jq-A1 and UL50Vt-A1, it the above utility can be controlled either through the hardware button on the right hand or through the software.