A modern laptop, in comparison with its elderly fellow - a rather powerful high-tech device. Mobile iron performance grows every day, which requires an increasing amount of energy.
To save batteries, manufacturers are installed in laptops two video cards: one built-in motherboard and having low power consumption, and the second - discrete, more powerful. Users, in turn, also sometimes add an additional card to increase productivity.
Installation of the second video card may cause certain difficulties in the form of various failures. For example, when trying to configure the parameters through the branded by "green", we get an error "The display used is not connected to NVIDIA GP". This means that only the built-in video card works. AMD also occurs similar trouble. In this article, let's talk about how to make a discrete video adapter work.
Turn on the discrete video card
Upon normal operation, a powerful adapter turns on when a resource-intensive task is required. It can be a game, image processing in a graphic editor or the need to play a video stream. The rest of the time there is an integrated schedule.Switching between graphics processors occurs automatically using a laptop software that is not devoid of all diseases inherent in software - errors, failures, damage to files, conflicts with other programs. As a result of malfunctions, the discrete video card may remain unfounded even in those situations when it is necessary.
The main symptom of such failures are "brakes" and laptop hangs when working with graphic programs or in games, and when trying to open the control panel, a message appears "NVIDIA Display Settings Not available".
The causes of failures are mainly in the drivers that may be incorrectly installed, or there is no one. In addition, an option can be disabled to the BIOS laptop that allows you to use an external adapter. Another reason that causes the NVIDIA card error is an emergency stop of the appropriate service.
Let's go from simple to complex. First, you need to make sure that the service is running (for NVIDIA), then access the BIOS and check if the option that uses a discrete adapter is disabled, and if these options have not worked, then proceed to software solutions. Not superfluous will also check the device's performance by contacting the service center.
NVIDIA service
- To manage services, go to the "Control Panel", switch to "small badges" and looking for an applet with the title "Administration".
- In the next window, go to the service item.
- In the list of services, we find "Nvidia Display Container LS", press the PCM and first restart, and then update the service.
- Restart the car.
Bios.
If initially, a discrete card was not installed in the standard set of laptop, the option is quite likely to disable the desired function in the BIOS. You can access its settings by pressing the F2 key when loading. However, access methods may differ from different equipment manufacturers, so find out in advance what key or combination opens the BIOS parameters in your case.
Next, it is necessary to find a branch containing the appropriate setting. It is difficult to determine how it will be called in your laptop. Most often it will be "Config" or "Advanced".
Again, it is difficult to give any recommendations, but you can bring some examples. In some cases, it will be enough to choose the desired adapter in the list of devices, and sometimes you have to set the priority, that is, move the video card to the first position in the list.
Contact your laptop manufacturer website and find out the BIOS version. Perhaps there will be able to get a detailed manual.
Incorrect installation of drivers
Everything is extremely simple here: in order to correct the installation, you must delete the old drivers and install new ones.- First you need to find out the accelerator model, and then download from the official sites of manufacturers the necessary distributions.
Reinstalling Windows
If all the methods described above did not help connect an external video card, you have to try another tool - a complete reinstalling of the operating system. In this case, we will get clean Windows to which you want to deliver all the necessary drivers manually.
After installation, in addition to software for the video adapter, it will be necessary to install the chipset driver, which can be found all on the same official website of the laptop manufacturer.
Priority is also important here: First of all, the program for the chipset, then for integrated graphics, and only then for a discrete video card.
These recommendations also work in the case of the purchase of a laptop without a pre-installed OS.
Read more:
Step-by-step guide to install Windows7 from a flash drive
Installing the Windows 8 operating system
Windows XP Installation Instructions from flash drive
On this working options for solving a video card problem in a laptop exhausted. If you cannot restore the adapter's performance, then you are the road to the service center for diagnostics and, possibly, repair.