Thinkpads Forum

Hi Folks,

I have the Optimus thing, and the NVIDIA chip is staying active when I'm on battery (as verified by NVGPUStateViewer64). Is there any way to have it automatically turn off when I'm on battery, or are apps that were attached to NVIDIA while plugged in keeping NVIDIA awake when I switch to battery? Any thoughts?

Thanks!

T410 2516-CTO
Optimus: NVS 3100M + Intel HD (most recent optimus driver installed)
Win 7 Pro x64 SP1

I'm almost pretty sure that there is no way possible to automatically turn off power to the Nvidia display adapter at any time, regardless of whether you are switching to battery or not. The only way to completely power down the Nvidia chip is to reboot and set the Integrated Graphics option in the BIOS.

thanks. what a bummer. Optimus seems to be a step down from switchable in that sense (if switchable ever actually worked well, that is).

There is another program that should be in that package of Optimus test tools. I can't remember its name, though.
Run that, and (un)check the box on that one; you'll see a list of programs that are using the nVidia GPU.

If you go into the nVidia Control Panel, you can set a rule for those particular applications (likely Windows Aero and Windows Sidebar (dwm.exe and sidebar.exe, respectively); when I had a T510 those were the two that would keep it on- though the newest Optimus driver should be smarter than that, it might still be using old defaults and files) so that they only use the Intel GPU.
Just do a search for those programs in the Start Menu, right-click on them, and change the settings for the application using the context menu.

Once you've done that, restart and check again; the nVidia GPU should be off.

Check other programs (such as Firefox) too; you may need to set the settings for those programs manually also.

Yeah - you're talking about the nvtestviewer program. It ends up being firefox and mediamonkey that keep nvidia awake for me. I could change the defaults, but then those programs wouldn't use the nvidia, right? Or, is there a separate setting for battery power? Too bad that Lenovo has always had issues delivering on the whole switchable graphics concept.