As everyone knows, nvidia drivers don't work well on Ubuntu. I deactivated my RTX 2060 nvidia card on my Lenovo Legion Y540 with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (keeping its use on Windows for gaming) doing the following (from there):
I checked Enable hybrid graphics in my BIOS; then,
sudo aptitude install bbswitch-dkms
and
sudo nvim /etc/modules
added bbswitch and reloaded.
I then switched to intel with:
sudo prime-select intel
And turned off nvidia card for lower consumption with
sudo tee /proc/acpi/bbswitch <<<OFF
My consumption went from like 40W to 11W, which is great, but now xrandr gives
eDP1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 340mm x 190mm
1920x1080 144.00*+ 59.96 59.93
1680x1050 84.94 74.89 69.88 59.95 59.88
1600x1024 60.17
1400x1050 85.00 74.76 70.00 59.98
1600x900 144.00 59.95 59.82
1280x1024 85.02 75.02 60.02
1440x900 59.89
1400x900 59.96 59.88
1280x960 85.00 60.00
1368x768 144.00 59.88 59.85
1360x768 59.80 59.96
1280x800 59.81 59.91
1152x864 100.00 85.06 85.00 75.00 75.00 70.00 60.00
1280x720 144.00 59.86 59.74
1024x768 85.00 75.03 70.07 60.00
1024x768i 86.96
1024x576 144.00 59.90 59.82
832x624 74.55
960x540 144.00 59.63 59.82
800x600 85.14 72.19 75.00 60.32 56.25
864x486 144.00 59.92 59.57
640x480 85.01 72.81 75.00 59.94
720x405 144.00 59.51 58.99
720x400 85.04
640x400 85.08
640x360 144.00 59.84 59.32
640x350 85.08
VIRTUAL1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
I just tried to plug in an HDMI monitor, and now it turned on the nvidia card again (while prime-select query still gives intel as a result), my power consumption is at 43W. I have to run sudo tee /proc/acpi/bbswitch <<<OFF again.
Does anyone know how to deactivate the nvidia card, yet still be able to connect external monitors? Maybe a USB-c adapter could do the trick if there is no other way?
lspci output:
lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 3e9b
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1f11 (rev a1)
