No vga_switcheroo

Hi,

I have a Samsung QX412 with hybrid (Intel HD and Nvidia) graphics, and I wish to disable nvidia chip in hope of getting decent battery life and keeping the heat down.

However I have run into an issue with “vga_switcheroo” not being available in “/sys/kernel/debug/”… Debugfs is mounted.

I am running kernel: 3.0.4-43-desktop (from Tumbleweed), and switcheroo is enabled.

cat /boot/config-3.0.4-43-desktop | grep SWITCHEROO
CONFIG_VGA_SWITCHEROO=y

Both nouveau and i915 drivers are running:

lsmod | grep i915
i915                  609343  3 
drm_kms_helper         42334  2 nouveau,i915
drm                   247990  6 nouveau,ttm,i915,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit           13368  2 nouveau,i915
video                  19625  2 nouveau,i915
button                 13942  2 nouveau,i915

lsmod | grep nouveau
nouveau               771324  0 
ttm                    80604  1 nouveau
mxm_wmi                12979  1 nouveau
drm_kms_helper         42334  2 nouveau,i915
drm                   247990  6 nouveau,ttm,i915,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit           13368  2 nouveau,i915
video                  19625  2 nouveau,i915
button                 13942  2 nouveau,i915

Any idea on what I should do to be able to access vga_switcheroo?

Cheers!

I’m not very familiar with hybrid graphics, but if your laptop is using NVIDIA’s optimus technology, then you might want to investigate using bumblebee. Sadly, I have not seen openSUSE users with hybrid graphics hardware document much in the way of getting this working. You might be the first to do so! It is worth reading this linux-hybrid-graphics blog, and perhaps participating if you can.

There is a bumblebee repo for openSUSE 11.4:

Index of /repositories/home:/Ximi1970:/bumblebee/openSUSE_11.4

and for 11.3:

Index of /repositories/home:/Ximi1970:/bumblebee/openSUSE_11.3

This archlinux bumblebee guide may be useful to you as well.

Good luck.

Thanks, deano_ferrari.

Following that blog and using “acpi_call” I have managed to reduce the idle power consumption from ~1750mA to 1250mA at 50% brightness. So it did work, 30% is great!

Unfortunately best case scenario at idle would be ~4.5 hours, while I am regularly getting ~7 hours full use out of Windows 7, which makes this somewhat disappointing. But still, success nonetheless.

Following that blog and using “acpi_call” I have managed to reduce the idle power consumption from ~1750mA to 1250mA at 50% brightness. So it did work, 30% is great!

That’s a great result. Thanks for the update. I hope this is of help to others who come searching for help with integrated graphics. :slight_smile: