CrunchBang Linux

Jangrie

Member

Registered: 2012-10-18

Posts: 11

How To Disable nVidia Graphics

Hi Everyone!

Because this Community already gave me so much I'd like to contribute something I was struggling with for a while now.

This Tutorial is meant for people who have a Notebook with 2 Graphic Cards (one of them an external nVidia Card) aka a Hybrid Netbook.
I've been looking for a method just to disable my nVidia Graphics cause I really don't need them when I'm in University or anywhere else. I can almost watch the battery getting lower and lower... it doesnt last for an hour.

As I never really found anything that REALLY solved the problem, I got in touch with the developer of the bumblebee and bbswitch project.

There is a way of enabling the integrated nVidia Optimus technologie with bumblebee but i just wanted to disable it completely. That's where he gave me instructions of how I can accomplish this with a program called bbswitch.

And here is how it works:

Step 1: Add archive key to apt keyring. Run as root:

wget -O - http://suwako.nomanga.net/suwako.asc | apt-key add -

Step 2: Update your sources.list configuration. Either add the following to /etc/apt/sources.list or to new file at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory:

deb http://suwako.nomanga.net/debian sid main contrib
deb-src http://suwako.nomanga.net/debian sid main

Step 3: Update Repositories:

sudo apt-get update

Step 4:  Install bbswitch:

sudo apt-get install bbswitch-dkms

Step 5: Run this:

sudo modprobe bbswitch load_state=0

Step 6: Run this:

sudo cat /proc/acpi/bbswitch

The output should say something like this:

0000:01:00.0 ON

This means that its still enabled which is normal cause you didn't disable anything yet!

Step 7:  To switch off nVidia run:

sudo tee /proc/acpi/bbswitch <<<OFF

If the card stays enabled and refuses "OFF" (you can see that by running):

dmesg |tail -1

Run this to turn off nVidia driver:

sudo modprobe -vr nouveau

Step 8: Do Step 7 over again !!

If you run the command from Step 6 again, it should say something like this now:

0000:01:00.0 OFF

That means that your nVidia Graphics are finally disabled.

Note: You need to do that everytime you reboot your Netbook (Step 5, Step 7 and Step 6 to check).
The easiest way would be to just write a little shell script that runs those little commands for you by just pressing a button in your menu or whatever!

Hope I could help you as I know that this is kind of a pain in the butt

Enjoy!

Last edited by Jangrie (2013-06-13 09:08:22)

Jamez

New Member

Registered: 2013-08-02

Posts: 2

Re: How To Disable nVidia Graphics

Bit of a thread dig, but I found that by step 5 my laptop suddenly went silent (fan on card stopped) and by step 6 the state was off. I then unplugged my power cable to find the battery life had doubled (from 3 hours to 6 hours).

nistro

New Member

Registered: 2013-08-04

Posts: 4

Re: How To Disable nVidia Graphics

When I try to run the first command:

wget -O - http://suwako.nomanga.net/suwako.asc | apt-key add -

I get the error:

Cannot write to `-' (Broken pipe).

Edit: Apparently I have to become su by running "sudo su" before running the command.

Last edited by nistro (2013-08-05 09:47:28)