Thinkpad T400 - Switchable Graphics

English Hardware
1

Hi there SUSE people, I’ve enjoyed using the system for the past year or so.

I just got a new hard drive for my Laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad T400), so I decided to install the latest version of openSUSE (I was previously using version 10.2 I think) however I have one problem:

my t400 has this feature called “switchable graphics”, basically it can use the integrated intel graphics chipset or the more power hungry ATI one.

I know most Linux distros do not support this feature and its ok, I only plan on running SUSE with the intel gpu (I value my battery life a lot), however since the laptop has no instructions on what to do, it tends to run both gpus consuming my battery like crazy.

In my 10.2 install I managed to stop the ATI gpu from running but I really dont recall how I did it, any instructions or workarounds so I can finally go ahead and install 11.2?

Search results in this forum only led to another user asking the same but no responses.

2

Such settings are in your BIOS.

3

I found the following link that might help.

Lenovo ThinkPad T400 - Gentoo Linux Wiki

It sounds like a BIOS option setting is what needs to be done. Here is a quote from the article that I found.

“The BIOS has three settings regarding the graphics card: integrated, switchable and discrete. When it is set to integrated, the BIOS turns off the power to the ATI card,”

See if this helps you run at a lower power level.

Thank You,

4

Hur Durp, yeah… never did check the BIOS.

Thanks guys, I’m on my way to moving up to 11.2 :slight_smile:

5

Great Chris.
See you on the other side.

Check this: Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums

6

Happy to help and do check-out the link provided by caf4926 on using restricted media in openSUSE.

Thank You,