Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

I just got a W520 (model 42763JU) with i7-2760QM @2.4Ghz, 8GB of RAM, and Nvidia 1000M. It came with the default Lenovo installation, which I've been using for the past few days. Everything was running fast and I was able to watch 1080p @60fps with smooth playback.

But I don't like all the crap that comes with the Lenovo setup so tonight I did a bare install of Windows 7 Ultimate on a newly purchased Samsung 850 EVO SSD. I then installed handpicked drivers/software from the Lenovo site including "NVIDIA Optimus Display Driver for Windows 7 (64-bit) - ThinkPad". Everything seemed to be running smoothly/quickly for web browsing and tasks around the OS but when I try to play a Youtube video I only get about 2 frames/sec. This is with HTML5 as I have not installed Flash. In System Information I see the Nvidia 1000M listed as the graphics adapter, but it seems as if it's either not being used or something is misconfigured. There are no other background processes eating CPU or memory while I'm attempting to do this playback. The total CPU usage during playback is ~15% and the memory usage is only ~2GB out of 8GB.

I should mention that I haven't done any Windows updates yet and there are 164 important updates pending for download. Maybe one of those will fix the issue?

Or is there some other driver or software I need?

edit: Here is everything I installed (Note that I uninstalled the 3D and audio part of the Nvidia installation, but I had done that with the prior setup as well):
http://oi60.tinypic.com/nd07yb.jpg

So the problem seems to be that the HD 3000 graphics are being used instead of the 1000M. I think this is the case because if I force it to discrete graphics in the bios I get zero stuttering issues, but when when I force it to integrated it stutters. It also stutters in the "Optimus" mode so I'm guessing it's just not switching on the the 1000M even though it needs it.

If anybody has any ideas for getting Optimus to work properly let me know. It would certainly be nice to only use the 1000M when necessary.

I find it quite confusing what drivers/packages I should be installing for this. Lenovo has the rather old Optimus installation, Windows installs it's own stuff (much more recent) from Nvidia, and the Nvidia website also has other versions. Plus different stuff installs depending on what graphics mode I pick in the bios.

Any help appreciated.

This is likely a driver issue as I've had the hd 3000 play way faster than 2 fps. If you right click the desktop -> nvidia control panel -) manage 3d -> you can specify what programs use either the intel hd or the nvidia. Now choose the browser you watch youtube in and select chrome/firefox/IE etc to use the nvidia. I've watched 1080p recorded video on youtube and used windows media classic to play mkv files on hd 3000 and it's capable.

I'm definitely not in the camp that the newest drivers are best nor am I an auto update drivers or windows update person, I'll push them manually after I let the masses test them first. I'm still running a few years old driver and it runs perfectly. Else I think in the c:\swtools\drivers of the original hard drive that plays videos fine you could take the drivers or inf from there and use those drivers since it seems to play fine with. I'm running the old optimus drivers from lenovo and hd3000 and nvidia play with no skips even on videos recorded at 3k/4k whatever my phone records them in.

Thanks for the reply! I did try every conceivable combination of video drivers I could find without a difference, but there are so many other variables I wasn't controlling for (other drivers, software versions, OS updates, possible configuration differences, etc). I did try messing with the Nvidia default driver per application control but got strange draw artifacts when forcing Firefox to use discrete graphics.

Here are a couple workarounds I've discovered recently: If I disable hardware acceleration in Firefox I can play 1080p 60fps with no dropped frames, though as expected the CPU usage jumps to ~45%. For 1080p 30fps the CPU is only at about 25% with no dropped frames. I've also noticed that Chrome doesn't seem to have any of these problems. It can play 1080p 60fps with or without hardware acceleration enabled with minimal frame dropping (the CPU usage doesn't really change from ~30% in this case which makes me wonder if the toggle even does anything).

I prefer the Firefox interface/UI so I'll probably continue to use it with hardware acceleration disabled. If I ever feel the need to get Optimus working probably I'll go back to the default Lenovo installation, which thanks to your included DVDs should be easy