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2nd screen icw optimus issue on M4600 / M4700 / E6530
Hi All,
A while ago i discovered that when you have a Precision M4600 in a E-port docking station with one or 2 external monitors connectedd with DVI, some older versions of the bios did not show the post screen.
This is in our case very annoying because our users use a bitlocker pincode to login. In almost all caes this was solved with a newer bios.
Now the issue occours on other models as well, i have issues with E6520 / E6530 and E6540 models were a later bios not always solves this issue. The only solution is to disable the Nvidia optimus setting in the Bios.
Is this a know issue at Dell? and What doe the optimus setting exactly do?
regards
Jerry
DELL-Justin C
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June 25th, 2014 18:00
Greetings Chaos2305,
Having the ‘Optimus’ feature basically implies that the portable PC has 2 graphics cards. One Intel card and one Nvidia card on the same motherboard. Pretty cool huh?
When you disable Optimus in the BIOS, you’re basically turning off the Intel graphics card so that you can utilize the Nvidia card only. If a person is planning on using the battery a lot, you’ll want Optimus enabled to save power, since the Intel card consumes less battery.
You’ll also want to consider the differences between 'Optimus' and ‘Switchable Graphics’. Your E6540 has Switchable Graphics instead of Optimus. Both Optimus and Switchable Graphics systems include 2 video cards each. However, the controls are different. On most systems with Switchable Graphics, the Intel card drives all the physical video ports. Therefore, the Intel card cannot be disabled VIA BIOS on systems with Switchable Graphics.
M4600 =Optimus
E6520 =Optimus
E6530 =Optimus
E6540 =Switchable graphics
Here’s a great document outlining some of the differences between Optimus and Switchable graphics:http://www.dell.com/support/troubleshooting/us/en/19/KCS/KcsArticles/ArticleView?docid=125975
For the E6540, the pre-Windows video issue was resolved in BIOS version A08. Did you try that already? Here’s the link if not:http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=G43HK&fileId=3347880783&osCode=W764&productCode=latitude-e6540-laptop&languageCode=EN&categoryId=BI
In cases where BIOS updates do not solve the issue for E6520 / E6530, you might simply try opening the LCD then closing it again. This may push video to the external displays.