[SOLVED] Toggling the display adapter on Lenovo Y700

[Clive Staples]

I have an older Lenovo Y700-17ISK laptop that features two separate display adapters. There's an Intel 530 and an NVIDIA GTX 960M. For some reason the Intel graphics adapter was in use rather than the NVIDIA. At first I thought it was just a limitation of the HDMI port, but even when I'm not connected to an external monitor it's the same story.

I've disabled the Intel graphics adapter via Device Manager but then the system falls back on generic Windows graphics. The driver for the NVIDIA GPU is up-to-date and there doesn't appear to be any problem with the hardware as far as I've been able to tell.

Does anyone know how I can force the laptop to use the NVIDIA adapter? I tried asking Lenovo's support team but they just wanted me to pay for an answer to the question since it's long out-of-warranty.

Thanks!

 

[4745454b]

I believe what normally happens is the Intel one is used for 2D and main uses. The Nvidia GPU would only kick on for high use things like games. It's normal to see the Intel in use for the most part.

 

[Clive Staples]

Hmm, that kind of makes sense, but I wonder if there's a way I can verify that when running a 3D application. This game Albion Online ran fine on this laptop in November and suddenly when I run it now, my CPU and GPU both spike to at or near 100% (as shown in Task Manager). I get massive input lag to about 3 seconds per click or keystrike, and if I manage to get to the game engine, it appears to render at about 1.5 seconds per frame.

Might not be the GPU that's at issue here, but everything else in Windows seems to run fine. If I have Albion running minimized and try to run GeForce Experience, it still tells me I'm not connected to an NVIDIA GPU. I'm vexxed. The game is unplayable.

 

[Clive Staples]

Aha, I believe I've resolved the symptom. I tried to run a different game that would use 3D rendering to see if it would also have the same issues. That other game needed a patch cause I hadn't played it in a long time. Turns out, I didn't have enough room for the patch on my SSD. So I cleared some SSD space and then launched Albion Online again - poof, problem solved. I guess it must have been a page file issue (or something like that) all along.