How can I disable the NVIDIA Optimus chip?

Question

To this question, it may sound like there are a lot of confliction with this question already, well... let me explain first:

1. Ubuntu 11.04 - disable NVIDIA graphics card -- To this, I am using Arch and it does not seem like arch has the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file and i would never want to install the driver (novaeu or something).
2. How to disable NVIDIA Optimus on a Dell XPS 15? -- That's for Windows.
3. Disabling NVidia Optimus -- Doesn't tell you how.
4. Disable my nVidia video card driver in Linux -- I don't have a domU and that's for a virtual machine.

Well, I guess that's it for the explaination, time for the question: You see, I've bought a Samsung NP300E4Z and installed Arch Linux on it, I can't adjust the display and there has been a lot of problems.

I have 2 GPUs here.

1. The Intel Integrated GPU (Core i5).
2. The Optimus GPU.

My goal is to disable the Optimus GPU just as it does not exist at all in the computer system. Once the Optimus GPU is disabled, I will use the Integrated GPU.

Now, I've checked the BIOS. Unfortunately, the BIOS is does not like me to "own" (configurate) the machine! I bought it, I should have the right to hack it :/

I've got the goal, but I have no idea. How do I disable the Optimus chip as if it does not exist in the computer system?

Solution

I don't know a way to completely hide and disable NVIDIA GPU, but Bumblebee offers a way to use the dedicated GPU in graphics-demanding apps with optirun command. It also uses a bbswitch kernel module to handle switching the dedicated GPU on and off, so you can turn it off for good (read: never use optirun) to save power. You cannot completely disable Optimus. There's Bumblebee site: http://bumblebee-project.org/ - and bbswitch GitHub page: https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/bbswitch - the second one is what you should read. It says you should add bbswitch load_state=0 to /etc/modules or /etc/modules.conf (I'm not using Arch, sorry) to disable it on boot.

Comments

[Lorenzo Von Matterhorn]

maybe this helps you wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hybrid_graphics

[nerdwaller]

What laptop make do you have? You should absolutely have the option of disabling graphics in the bios. Regardless, I recommend bumblebee for Arch, I posted a link in @DragoonPL1's comment section since they are dead on, imo.

[milo64]

@nerdwaller a Samsung. It is shipped with the "Pheonix BIOS".

[Dragoon Aethis]

Also, uninstall the NVIDIA and Nouveau driver. It breaks most stuff if you install it on Optimus system. Tested in battle.