Graphics Card Confusion GS60 Ghost

Hi everyone,

I don't know if this is the right section to post, if not can the admin please move the thread; sorry, thanks.
I have the GS60 2PC 005UK Ghost Non-Pro version. It's my first MSI laptop and I've had it for a week; must say its a brilliant laptop for its size. Now I'm really confused at one thing. Now everyone does know the when the graphics card is not being used the power button if blue, and if the graphics card is being used the power button turns red.

Now for a few days it was working perfectly. However, recently my power button just turns red and stays red even though I'm not using any application that uses the GPU. The GPU fan is very quite, which tells my that my GPU isn't being used. I've checked TSK MNGR, and I cant see any application that uses GPU.

This mainly started happening after I downloaded many games from steam, which I bought during steam sales because I knew I was getting this laptop. Now I don't want to reset my laptop again because it would take ages to re-download the games.

Is there any application that would tell me what is using the GPU? The Nvidia GeForce Experience doesn't tell me anything at all.

Thanks for the help.

EDIT: The GPU side does get a-bit hot. So I think it is being used, but very little, but I can't tell. The red power light is still on even though I'm only running Google Chrome. And no I have not used "Run graphics processor with NVIDIA". You know what I mean.


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Check NVIDIA Control Panel to see if steam is whitelisted to being used with the GPU. It was like that when I first got my MSI laptop.

 

Steam does activate the dGPU by itself.
You can ignore it and let it run the way it is because as you start to have more applications it will be harder to control how each of them operates.

 

Hi eyung, thanks for that info. I went into NVIDIA Control Panel and saw that Steam & Steamservice was on "use global settings (Auto Select; NVIDIA GPU)". I changed that to "Integrated Graphics". I changed all services to Integrated Graphics except for "GeForce Experience" since the GPU is needed for that application. After that I restarted the laptop to see any difference however it didn't work. When in the log-in screen, the power light is blue. However, once logged in the power light turns red once all startup applications have started. I thought it was the GeForce Experience causing this. I closed the application yet no different. The GPU was still running. I can provide all start-up applications if it helps.

Hi Kevin, thanks for the suggestion, however I like to manage my laptop because I don't want it to use the GPU while on battery, since it will consume more power from the battery.

 

You can disable Steam from starting with Windows so that your dGPU is not initiated when Steam loads. Alternatively, you can blacklist/whitelist Steam in the NVidia Control Panel depending on when you're using it/not using it, although the former method is probably ideal.

Steam can be prevented from starting when Windows starts by going to msconfig and unchecking it in the "Services" tab, as well as the "Startup" tab.

 

Hey Prostar, thanks for the help. eyung had already told me about NVIDIA Control Panel which I tried but didn't work. I've also set it on on msconfig too since I knew about that, but something is still using the GPU, or the GPU just gets started on its own. I've disabled all application from using GPU; restarted the laptop, yet the GPU still is being used, shown by the red power light.

UPDATE ON OP: It was weird, I was playing watch dogs for 3 hours. Once I stopped playing and closed the game, since the game stopped using GPU, the blue light was back on meaning nothing else was using my GPU. Weird. Because even on start-up nothing is using my GPU yet the GPU light was on.

 

I also notice strange behaviour in the switching between GPU and Intel HD CPU. Problems I have seen so far:

1. (with preferred graphics processor set on Auto-Select) it sometimes just starts using the Nvidia GPU from a windows start. All default programs (like Dragon Gaming Center, and Realtek HD Audio manager) are listed as applications that are using the NVidia GPU.. This doesn't look like it is suppose to be.

So I have set my Preferred graphics to "Intergrated graphics" This fixed the problem, but you often need to manually add games to the list for using the Nvidia GPU. This is a pain for games that use a launcer, since some don't have a good .exe file that you can add to the list.

2. Metro tiles from windows 8.1 can trigger the Nvidia GPU activation too.. things like Windows Mail (in metro style) wil start the Nvidia GPU and even though you force quit all the programs in task manager, it will not stup using the Nvidia GPU anymore. This was also fixed by setting the Perfered graphics processor to "Intergrated graphics" But again the defficulty of manually adding all 3D games.

3. (With the Perfered graphics processor set on "Intergrated graphics") I have found a few times already that after quiting an 3D game, the Nvidia GPU will keep being used and can't be stopped unless you restart your pc. When you look at the active programs that are using the Nvidia GPU you will see that no programs are using it, but still it decides to drain your battery with the heavy Nvidia GPU. (see pic, icon shows colors meaning it is active, and my button is orange while no applications use it.)


This is why I decided to post here, I'm ok with needing to do a bit of manually fixing with these new awesome techniques, but then it should work ok. Now I'm kinda stuck in to much dead ends. Do other people have the same problems? Does somebody know how make sure the pc alway''s falls back on the Intel HD CPU? I even noticed a few times that it would reandomly activate the GPU for no reason resulting in a drained battery when I got back from the toiled...>.<

 

Curious, have you tried opening NVidia Control Panel, clicking "Desktop" at the top and then enabling "Display GPU Activity in the Notification Area"? This will then enable an icon in the taskbar that will be grey when Intel is active and red when NVidia is active.... hover over the icon or right click and it will tell you what is using the GPU.

Otherwise, like others have stated, depending on the NVidia driver version, Steam will by default use the GPU needlessly.

 

Try not to get too much headaches over these settings, just let them run off the default settings.
Because if there's a newer version of driver that gets released later then you may lose the settings and start all over.
But if you must then you will have to go through extensive of customizations which can be headaches randomly.

 

@be77solo: Look at the picture I added to my earlier post. There you see exactly the icon your talking about...>.<

@Kevin: thanks for ya reaction, I agree that most settings will most likely return to default with updates. But still these kinda things should not happen. There are still bugs. I just waked my pc from yesterday's post and it is still heavily using the Nvidia GPU but it shows it is using it for 0 applications. While my settings are set to alway's use Intel integrated. It is just not behaving as it should.

Does somebody know a place to fill in these kind of bugs?