E6540 Owners Thread

Muchas Gracias Senor!

 

How exactly can you see if switching is working? I have installed the 14.2 beta drivers on Windows 8.1. This is what I see in the system tray:



I have an option Configure Switchable Graphics which lets me choose "High Performance" or "Power Saving" for every program, but I cannot seem to switch or select the graphics card for everything. (I see no option.). Or maybe this is intended?

 

Under the Power tab in the Catalyst Control Centre there is a 'Switchable Graphics Application Monitor'. The drivers will automatically select which GPU to use; web browsing doesn't require the use of the dGPU for example.

 

Are those of you who are using docks getting reliable gigabit ethernet connections when you dock your laptop? I've tried swapping eports, cables, switches, etc. and am constantly getting a 100MBps connection when I first dock. Several restarts/redocks or enable/disables of the nic later I can finally get a gigabit connection.

edit: I tried a 3rd hub (a different model this time) and it worked on my first redock. I'll update if I have problems next time I remove the laptop.

 

So really, almost everything runs on the Intel GPU, only Games on the dGPU? What about movies etc?

 

Yeah, games only as far as I know. You can choose a program to run on the discrete GPU, but don't know for sure if this works yes or no. For instance, choose mp-hc to use the dGPU, don't really know if this works.
Is it possible to run a program on the dGPU, within the desktop, windowed? So this windows uses the dGPU and the desktop the normal GPU?

 

Why would Dell put a dGPU in a "business" laptop like this one, if you can only use it for games?

 

Use the application monitor to see if the application uses the dGPU. Seems like the presets make MPC-HC use the 4600, which is really not a problem for me personally as I want to preserve battery life if I'm unplugged & watching video.



I'd imagine applications like CAD/3d modelling will also make use of the dGPU.

 

I don't know if this is a recent issue from all the times my machine has been taken apart or just how it is, but does anyone elses lcd not shut off when the laptop is closed? I have lid action to "Do nothing" and could have sworn it used to work fine on this machine.

 

Same over here when I wiped disk and moved to 8.1.