How to disable graphic card in kubuntu
Created at 2014-11-02 Updated at 2024-04-17 - 1 min. read Category experience
As usual i was struggling with the over heat problem of my laptop on kubuntu. Which have have a AMD7670 graphic card. Then i came across a article which told me how to disable graphic card on KUBUNTU 12.04. here are the steps and Some basic knowledge.
Hybrid Graphics: Ubuntu provides vga_switcheroo which is a kernel mechanism which allows you to switch between GPUs if your machine has a hardware mux. Some laptops come with two graphics cards: one for use in applications that require a lot of computing power and other that is less powerful, but conserves energy, called the integrated GPU. The integrated GPU is often embedded in the CPU, hence the name. This concept is called Hybrid Graphics.
Manually Turn OFF GPU:
sudo su
echo DIS>/sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo OFF>/sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo IGD>/sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo ON>/sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch turns off that is currently disconnected. open /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch file and check whether this has worked or not. For DIS, instead of “Pwr”, “Off” should appear.
Enjoy your computer with battery backup of 6+ hours :)