The officially official Devuan Forum!

mclien

Member

Registered: 2020-02-29

Posts: 100  

Graphic on a Thinkpad with NVidia card

My "new" thinkpad T460p has 2 video cards:

 lspci
...
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 530 (rev 06)
....
02:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM108M [GeForce 940MX] (rev a2)
...

I found this instruction:
https://www.unixmen.com/how-to-make-nvi … on-debian/

But this is how to set up to use the two cards alternating. So you choose which video card is running every time you start a program.

I'm not entirely sure if I want that or rather  have the nvidia card running all graphic all the time.

Last edited by mclien (2021-02-26 21:47:13)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2019-03-24

Posts: 3,125  

Website

Re: Graphic on a Thinkpad with NVidia card

I found this instruction

The Debian wiki has a Bumblebee page with the same instructions but you don't have to wade through a swamp of adverts & javascript to read that.

I'm not entirely sure if I want that or rather  have the nvidia card running all graphic all the time.

Check the firmware ("BIOS") options, there may be a setting to change from "Hybrid" to "Discrete" for the NVIDIA card. Try looking under Config → Display → Graphics Device.

See https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobi … r_v1.0.pdf & https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobi … n_v1.0.pdf for some examples.

---

Brianna Ghey — Rest In Power

mclien

Member

Registered: 2020-02-29

Posts: 100  

Re: Graphic on a Thinkpad with NVidia card

1. thanks for the hint
2. sadly this menu point is missing in my Thinkpad (T460p)

But I start to kinda like the idea of using the nvidia card only when necessary (power consumption wise)

(First I need to get a working docking station, which is a pain because there are docks with DP and DVI, which are mutually exclusive. In whatever universe that should make sense)

mclien

Member

Registered: 2020-02-29

Posts: 100  

Re: Graphic on a Thinkpad with NVidia card

The BIOS on my specific machine has no BIOS setting
Config → Display → Graphics Device
hence no "discrete"
I think I should look into the Bumblebee stuff.

Is there a good way to find out, if this Notebook actually has a Nvidia Optimus feature?