Making nVidia Geforce 660M work with external display at 4k...

[Shatten]

I have a Clevo W370ET that comes with a GeForce660M GTX display card. I updated the latest nvidea drivers, I installed the samsung drivers for the monitor, I am using a high speed HDMI cable. However, i don't get the option to choose a resolution higher than 1920*1080 on the UHD screen.

I now believe this is connected with the nVidia Optimus technology. All i want is to have the 4k resolution in my second screen but it seems that it is the Intel HD graphics card that is working. Apparently, only when running intensive 3D applications does the nVidia card kicks in. How can i disable this and run always everything from the 660M? For now i'd just like to be able to navigate through Windows with my second screen in 4k resolution...

btw, i tried disabling the Intel graphics card in Device Manager but it didn't help. If I do so, the system only recognizes one screen..

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Which GPU drives the port is determined in hardware, by which component the physical tracks on the PCB go to. If it renders content on the display using the Nvidia GPU, the GPU tells the Intel iGPU what to display and the Intel GPU then passes it on to the display.

Does your PC have any other display outputs? I've seen a number of displays (though not 4K ones) that don't advertise their full resolution over HDMI; you have to use DP or DVI-D DL.

It looks like your iGPU should be able to handle at least 2560x1600; I'm not sure about 4K. Ars implies that it needs 2xDP, though I think that was a limitation of the monitor chips that were used at the time.

 

[Shatten]

Thanks! The only external graphic ports my laptop have are one HDMI and one VGA. My feeling is that this is a problem with the Intel HD 4000 graphics card, that only supports up to standard full HD. Dunno if it could be solved with a new release of a driver or something, that it would make it bridge the signal directly to the nvidia card (which supports 4k i believe)...

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Unfortunately, as I said, which GPU drives which display is fixed in hardware. Drivers can't change hardware.

You might be able to use an external USB GPU - DisplayLink makes a chip that does that, so there'll be a pile of those with different brands slapped on the lid. It'll do the full resolution, but gaming and video performance won't be all that great.