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select ati card in hybrid setup

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  • select ati card in hybrid setup

    Hello,

    I have a hp pavilion dv6-6093ex which has i5 2410m CPU and ati 6740m GPU, so it's a hybrid graphics laptop. Since I bought it almost a month now and I am trying to enable the ati card but with no success.

    I am running openSuSE 11.4 64bit with kernel 2.6.39-30-vanilla because the stock kernel does not have vga_switchroo (or I could not find it). I tried vga_switchroo after being in init 3 then issue:
    PHP Code:
    echo "DDIS" >> /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitchroo/switch 
    but the computer hangs and I have to hold power button to shut it down.

    I also tried fglrx 11.5 but it says no supported adapter exists, so my only hope is to enable vga_switchroo. Is there a way to use the ati card in my system.

    Does this card, ati 6740m, exist? because in Windows it says it's 6770m.

    Thank in advance
    Last edited by amaj1407; 03 June 2011, 04:43 PM.

  • #2
    Xorg version

    I forgot to mention that my Xorg version is 1.9.3.

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    • #3
      Radeon HD 6730M, 6750M and 6770M exist but no 6740 according to the AMD/ATI GPU list on Wikipedia. Anyway, all 66xxM/67xxM cards are quite the same, based on the same Turks chip, so it should not matter which of them you're using.

      Your laptop's BIOS may have an option, often named Windows XP mode, to use the ATI only.

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      • #4
        Thank you albert,
        Unfortunately the BIOS does not have such an option. I asked about the existence of 6740m because Catalyst on Win tells it's a 6770m and even HP web site tells so, http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/me/en...4-5068478.html. Could this, that linux identify the card as 6740m, be the problem. If so, can I trick linux to see the card as 6770m

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        • #5
          Same Problem

          I have the same problem. Unfortunately the HP BIOS has no option to turn off the Intel Card. Anyone having an idea?
          System: HP dv6-6008eg with ATI 6770M HD
          Gentoo Linux

          Never again an HP Laptop. It is always a pain to get those running under Linux

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          • #6
            If you use Ubuntu, downgrading all to 10.10 (2.6.35) and using 11.5 seems to me the most "stable" configurations. Stable here means that you will get the login screen after 2 or 3 X restarts in 1-2 of 3 times, and blinking caps-lock or no X the others, but once you are able to get the X, it seems not to crash so much.
            Apart of the BIOS option, I would suggest HP to put the power-down button in a more handy position, near the F or the J in the keyboard, in order not to have to take the yous hands out of keyboard when resetting... For improving productivity, i mean...

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            • #7
              Modern HP laptops are never a real problem with Linux, only the ones with hybrid graphics, and the ones with Broadcom wireless chips. And many of their laptops use none of these 2 things.
              This is not limited to HP: any laptop using hybrid graphics has problems on Linux.

              Linux' support for hybrid graphics is bad. That's the problem. It is not HP.
              When Ubuntu 12.10 will start shipping Wayland, I think that the hybrid graphics problems will be solved by then. At least in Ubuntu 11.10 there will be a program for switching between 2 X servers, where 1 is running on the Intel and 1 on an NVidia (don't know when ATI support will come, but when NVidia works it should not be too difficult).
              Last edited by AlbertP; 06 June 2011, 11:37 AM.

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              • #8
                I agree with you that Linux support fro hybrid is very bad. Starting with the X pain,
                going through the open source drivers, and even going to propietary drivers.
                Most proprietary drivers in particular make me stunned/puzzled with their very low quality. Most of their so called "releases" should be only be classified as technology previews, or alpha 0.x as much. For me it's unbelieable that these big companies deliver this sofware for general use. I work on a software develop team for a motoring company, and I would be correctly fired in 0, seconds if I would even think on let the team release something with this quality.
                Open source drivers are different, as you cannot expect hobbyist people to solve your problems (even when most times they do that), but people paid by their companies (name it amd, intel, nvidia or even canonical or redhat) are expected to do that.

                I also blame HP for contributing to this. A simple BIOS option to turn off one card of the other would be enough from them. In fact, the specifications of my home laptop only told about Ati graphics, nor hybrid. But the fact is that the option is not in the most recent BIOS of a 9 months laptop. And even more, ACPI tables try to hide the discrete card for non windows 7 OSs, even for XP (But keep it at full power on, to keep your home warm, your autonomy low, and to help you to forget other OSs than W7)

                When Ubuntu 12.10 will be delibered, this hybrid laptop will have more than two years, and I (as most people, I guess) cannot wait to that time for having the computer working with stability.
                Laptops are not as good wines, that enhance with the passing time. If my previous laptop would have the enough performance I wouldn't had chan ged it. So the conclusion here is that if you need performance (in a desktop), you have to avoid Linux, and try to stay with a W7/OSX solution.
                The only recent new that I think that can change this fail on the Linux desktop, is the launch of the hardware certification by ubuntu. I expect the certification here to be real and with extensive testing, and not only a "it's ok as x starts" or similar.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by amaj1407 View Post
                  I also tried fglrx 11.5 but it says no supported adapter exists
                  Don't stop there : aticonfig is not working on my system, but using this very simple /etc/X11/xorg.conf does make X work perfectly :

                  Section "Device"
                  Identifier "ATI"
                  Driver "fglrx"
                  EndSection

                  Section "Screen"
                  Identifier "Default Screen"
                  DefaultDepth 24
                  EndSection

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