nVidia 970M MIA :|

I bought a Metabox (Clevo) P650RE laptop about two or three months ago, with a discrete nVidia GTX 970M 3GB GPU, running Windows 10 Pro. Everything was working perfectly fine with the latest drivers, but as of a couple of weeks ago... the 970M seems to have gone on strike.

When I click through Advanced Display Settings -> Display Adapter Properties, it shows me that the display is running through the builtin Intel HD Graphics 530 chip, not the 970M. And the nVidia Control Panel is *only* displaying the "3D Settings" section, not all the other sections that are usually there.

If I head into Device Manager and disable the Intel adapter, the display goes into software VGA mode, rather than switching to the nVidia chip. (However Device Manager does also list the 970M in the Display Adapters section.)

I've had a look through the BIOS (stock American Megatrends) and there's actually no option to switch the default display adapter.

Screenshot of the bizarrely empty nVidia Control Panel, GeForce Experience showing latest drivers, Windows Display Adapter properties showing it using the darned Intel chip:



I don't know exactly when it happened because I've been super unwell during the past two months and have hardly been able to use this laptop ( ), but I did notice last week when using the machine (to play nethack through putty, so nothing strenuous!) that the display kept going black followed by a little notification popping up saying that the Intel Graphics HD 530 chip had crashed and been restarted, so the 970M must have died or been disabled at some point before that: since I haven't used this machine much lately, I haven't done any updates other than automatic Windows Updates since I got it, other than updating (clean uninstall/reinstall) the nVidia drivers today in an attempt to fix it.

Does anyone have a clue about how to restore the 970M to its rightful place in the universe? It feels like a software issue rather than a hardware issue, because the nVidia GeForce Experience and Windows Device Manager are both showing the 970M as existent and problem-free, but I welcome any and all input/ideas.

 

IIRC it's always been like that: when you run a laptop in optimus mode the intel GPU is the default GPU (and therefore controls all of the display options) for when you're idle. you only way you can get to see all options for the 970M is to run pure in dedicated mode. what you did is not pure dedicated mode because you didn't really turn the intel GPU off at the BIOS level, you merely disabled the driver, and it sounds like you can't do that.

the only way to get it to run off the nvidia GPU exclusively with your brand (clevo/sager rebrand) is to get a built-in 120hz display and that will lock out the intel GPU because it doesn't support 120hz. Most likely, judging from how you describe your system and screenshots, that the 4k is a 60hz panel and that's a frequency the intel GPU supports and therefore it gets routed through there.

So that's normal behaviour for an optimus laptop.

your laptop is designed (more like destined) to always be an optimus laptop.

if you really want those options then you have to fork out more...more for the screen and more for a 970M with double the VRAM.

 

What about going into nvidia control panel and setting it to run on nvidia card only ?
Could be you need a software patch to run the game on dedicated gpu.
How about set up a fake monitor and assign it the dedicated gpu so both adapters are outputting ?
ect.

There are no shortcuts except in a Barber shop..

If this does not work, there is only one other solution, find the amercian who wrote software program-encrypted-no cheating by low or no lifes stealing code, he writes it for a certain I/D-GPU's and sells games sometimes, cost is around $100 or so and gives full control of integrated and dedicated gpu's, good luck on finding him, he is not like the children on twitch, ect. Throwing money at the problem does not solve the problem-you have to be dedicated to the solution and then you'll find it

Cheers
3fees

 

it don't work like that: there's no real software that can switch it to run off the nvidia GPU in this case - it would need to be in the UEFI/BIOS.

if the model does not allow for switching between GPUs then you picked the wrong laptop to do something it is not designed to do.

 

In most Optimus laptops the display ports including the internal LCD are hard wired directly to the Intel GPU, so no software will get around it. Intel GPU controls all display parameters. Nvidia GPU just passes it through the Intel display buffer.

Some laptops have a soft or hard mux that can be switched, but this requires proper hard wiring from the OEM to work. Some laptops even have the internal LCD wired to the Intel and external ports to the dedicated GPU. But those are the minor exceptions. I'd say 95%+ all wire to the Intel GPU.