Switchable Graphics - ATI/Intel - HP Pavilion 6000

[CoffeeNKeyboard]

I am trying out a few things here and thought of posting this information to get some feedback.
1 Attempting to use the ATI 6770M card
2 Switch off the one not in use
3 Use vga_switcheroo to select the card to use

As I gather, my laptop model HP DV6T Quad Edition (6000) has a mux design with manual switching (no option in the BIOS unfortunately, I have to boot into Windows and use CCC to set it)

Questions:
* looking at the lsmod output it appears as though both intel and radeon modules are loaded. How to determine which card is being used for video output?
* I haven't installed the proprietary drivers. I was expecting to see the vga_switcheroo folder but there is none. What am I missing?
* If I can ascertain ATI 6770M is being used, I would like to switch IGP off. How to do this? I have read about the vga_switcheroo route, which leads us back to the previous question

lspci

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Whistler XT [AMD Radeon HD 6700M Series]

lsmod

Module                          Size  Used by
fuse                           62381  3
sunrpc                        200079  1
cpufreq_ondemand            5934  8
acpi_cpufreq                    9536  1
mperf                           1449  1 acpi_cpufreq
bnep                           14635  2
bluetooth                     191587  7 bnep
ip6t_REJECT                 3992  2
nf_conntrack_ipv6           7730  2
nf_defrag_ipv6              9083  1 nf_conntrack_ipv6
ip6table_filter                 1655  1
ip6_tables                     16908  1 ip6table_filter
nf_conntrack_ipv4           8358  2
nf_defrag_ipv4              1513  1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
xt_state                        1306  4
nf_conntrack                   67613  3 nf_conntrack_ipv6,nf_conntrack_ipv4,xt_state
snd_hda_codec_hdmi         22499  1
snd_hda_codec_idt          56485  1
arc4                            1417  2
hp_wmi                          8103  0
sparse_keymap               3358  1 hp_wmi
uvcvideo                       57089  0
microcode                      18587  0
videodev                       72104  1 uvcvideo
media                          11611  2 uvcvideo,videodev
v4l2_compat_ioctl32         7377  1 videodev
joydev                          9615  0
xhci_hcd                      105070  0
iTCO_wdt                       13000  0
iTCO_vendor_support         2578  1 iTCO_wdt
i2c_i801                        9237  0
iwlagn                        322267  0
mac80211                      247332  1 iwlagn
cfg80211                      148129  2 iwlagn,mac80211
rfkill                         16436  5 bluetooth,hp_wmi,cfg80211
snd_hda_intel              23896  2
snd_hda_codec              82508  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep                   6328  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_seq                        52322  0
snd_seq_device              5941  1 snd_seq
snd_pcm                        78424  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
r8169                          38146  0
mii                             4335  1 r8169
hp_accel                       14480  0
lis3lv02d                      11456  1 hp_accel
input_polldev                   3382  1 lis3lv02d
snd_timer                      19372  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd                            63380  13 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore                       6267  1 snd
snd_page_alloc              7343  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
ipv6                          284570  43 ip6t_REJECT,nf_conntrack_ipv6,nf_defrag_ipv6
wmi                             9033  1 hp_wmi
i915                          378728  0
radeon                        690599  0
ttm                            55273  1 radeon
drm_kms_helper             26474  2 i915,radeon
drm                           193923  4 i915,radeon,ttm,drm_kms_helper
video                          12340  1 i915
i2c_algo_bit                    4974  2 i915,radeon
i2c_core                       25712  7 videodev,i2c_i801,i915,radeon,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit

A large amount of information is available here
https://docs.google.com/document/pub...qnVgL4adyCv7Ew

[silverglade00]

video 12340 1 i915

I think that one tells you which one is being used to run your display.

[CoffeeNKeyboard]

@silverglade00 Cheers for that! Sorry it took me a while to get back to this topic.

Well. For the benefit of others with similar laptop configurations, I have managed to meet objectives 2 and 3 for now (to use vga_switcheroo to turn off the unused card - discrete graphics card for now and below is how I did it. Has anyone managed to get the discrete one working with the integrated one turned off?

I haven't come across a simple explanation of how it works but I read here that vga_switcheroo shows up when there are two video drivers loaded. I had the radeon driver blacklisted to let the system boot up. So I tried these commands manually and then added them to the script once I saw it working

/etc/rc.local

# load up radeon to get vga_switcheroo back
modprobe radeon
# switch to intel graphics
echo "DIGD" > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
# switch off unused graphics
echo "OFF" > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

Before switching off the discrete card

[root@dv6tqe ~]# cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
0:IGD:+:Pwr:0000:00:02.0
1:DIS: :Pwr:0000:01:00.0

After switching off the discrete card

[root@dv6tqe ~][root@dv6tqe ~]# cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
0:IGD:+:Pwr:0000:00:02.0
1:DIS: :Off:0000:01:00.0

Started getting a shed load of errors at shutdown. Set up the discrete chip to be turned back on at shutdown like described here

Hope this helps.

When I get the time, I'll try using the discrete card and shut down the Intel one, if that works. It would be nice to have that choice.