Optimus IV Dedicated Graphics Light / Button

[shkm]

Hi there!

Received my Optimus IV recently and installed Windows 8 (x64). After some driver hunting, everything runs like a dream, with a few small annoyances.

Firstly, the dedicated graphics LED is always lit up, as is the VGA button (which does nothing when pressed). I can confirm that I am not always running on dedicated graphics, so it there any fix available?

Secondly, sound works fine, but I do have a warning about another device, a "High Definition Audio Device" not working:



The device ID is

HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8086&DEV_2806&SUBSYS_80860101&REV_1000

What's the deal with that?

Thanks!

 

[Pagey]

As for the VGA button, when it's green it's in "UMA Power Mode", and when it's orange it should be set to "High Power Mode". This allows you to switch easily between "Use loads of power for gaming" and "use as little as possible" to run off the battery. Basically it's never off.

Also, for the VGA button to work properly, you'll need to install the "Control Center" program.

As for the sound issue: If the sound is working fine for you, don't worry about it.

 

[shkm]

The VGA button is always orange, and pressing it currently doesn't achieve anything. Where can I find "Control Center"?

Thanks!

 

[Keithg]

shkim, I have the same problem with my optimus, again there is definite switching between GPU's but the light stays orange.
There is a control center as part of the clevo software as well as nvidia but I would imagine it is clevo one. It has controls for screen brightness and volume sliders etc but not seen anything about the optimus light.

but it has never bothered me so I haven't looked.

 

[Pagey]

shkm: Sorry on the Clevo driver site it's actually called "Hotkey driver (8.0076) for Windows 8." From here. Or use thw Win7 version if you're on Win7.

I actually had to spend a lot of time messing around with the "Optimus" settings to make sure things run as I want them to. Essentially when the VGA light is green, the power plan should be set to "UMA Mode" and when it's orange I get it to select "High Performance" mode. There are then two other lights to indicate if the GPU or iGPU are active, green for iGPU and orange for GPU.

I think there is sticked thread somewhere to help with getting programs to work with the iGPU or GPU.

Keithg: If it's constantly on orange, I would imagine you're not getting much time from your battery?

 

[Keithg]

I think it is more a light issue that a switching problem. For example sonic generations has a well know problem with optimus in that the config file only detects the intel gpu and wont switch to the nvidia gpu without editing a config file and this was the case with me where the intel was used.
But as I said yesturday I had not been paying attention to the light and I was commenting from memory. When I have the machine next I will look a little closer.

 

[Pagey]

I think I've had similar issues with other programs, I think there might just be a few bugs that sill need to be ironed out.

 

[shkm]

It's pretty simple to enable Optimus for specific games via the NVIDIA Control Panel. You can also enable the tray icon which will tell you whether or not the dedicated graphics is being used.

Anyway, thanks for letting me know about the Clevo driver site!

 

[Pagey]

It's pretty simple to enable Optimus for specific games via the NVIDIA Control Panel. You can also enable the tray icon which will tell you whether or not the dedicated graphics is being used.

Anyway, thanks for letting me know about the Clevo driver site!

You do know which model to look for?

 

[shkm]

It's the W370ET, right? In any case, I think I'll leave the drivers for now: I like how the hotkeys behave under Windows 8 by default, and turns out I can live without the VGA button working for the moment. But it's good to know.

 

[Pagey]

It's the W370ET, right? In any case, I think I'll leave the drivers for now: I like how the hotkeys behave under Windows 8 by default, and turns out I can live without the VGA button working for the moment. But it's good to know.

Yeah that's the correct one to look for.

Tbh you don't need any extra software for any hotkeys, but it seems to give operability to the VGA button. If you're happy with it as it is then by all means don't worry about it.