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chriedel

2 Posts

59417

April 30th, 2011 10:00

Latitude e6420 problems with GPU and hardware acceleration

I have the Latitude e6420 with the dual graphics option of Intel onboard GPU and the Nvidia NVS4200m.

Drivers are the current ones from the Dell webpage.

All things left at standard settings.

These are the problems that I observe:

 

a) OpenGL support in Adobe Photoshop CS5 does not work. In particular when using the laptop discplay. I don't see the photo. Once I deactivate the OpenGL support in Photoshop, things are fine.

b) watching full-screen video in flashplayer 10.2 does not work. Black screen. I have to deactivate hardware acceleration in Flashplayer for the video to show normally. Interestingly, this problem only occurs on the laptops own screen. Using an external monitor, the problem does not exist.

c) I ran some GPU benchmark software, and strangely the onboard Intel GPU scored higher than the Nvidia GPU. I guess this should not be the case.

 

All in all, what is wrong here? Are the drivers for the GPU's so bad/buggy ? Or is my setup somehow corrupted ?

Can anyone confirm that they have a smoothly operating e6420 ?

thanks.

DELL-Terry B

4 Operator

 • 

3.5K Posts

May 3rd, 2011 14:00

chriedel

I am sorry to read that you are having these problems.  The system does have Optimus support, so what you may be experiencing is that the system is running your apps using the integrated intel graphics instead of the discreet Nvidia GPU.

If you have not tried it already, I suggest making profiles for Photoshop and Flash player to use the NVIDIA GPU

Creating Custom Application Profiles for new applications

Users can also create application profiles for any application on the computer. This may be required for newly released games or applications that do not have a default application profile.

To create a new profile for an application:

  • 1. Open the NVIDIA Control Panel.
  • 2. Select Manage 3D Settings.
  • 3. Select Program Settings tab
  • 4. Click Add button.
  • 5. Browse to and select the application executable that needs the new profile.
  • 6. Or choose the preferred application from the drop menu.
  • 7. Select the features and settings you wish to change for this application.

I have not tried it yet but I would suggest creating a profile to run the Nvidia GPU even for the benchmark.  This is fairly new technology and I just don't know if the benchmarks have been updated to test Optimus systems.

 

chriedel

2 Posts

May 5th, 2011 06:00

Thanks for the reply. I tried what you suggested and it solved the issue with OpenGL support in Photoshop CS5. This works fine now.

I will investigate my other two issues some more and post here again, if these problems persist.

pipboy

1 Message

February 18th, 2012 10:00

I've got a similar problem with my E6420. For whatever reason Win 7 decided to use Integrated Intel HD over the NVIDIA 4200M card. When it was first delivered 4200M was my primary card, but since I applied all updates Win + Dell Intel is my primary card. I've looked into BIOS options as well as Windows, but I can't find any way to simply switch from one card to another. Disabling Intel HD in devices manager has completely switched off my display, so I have to keep them both enabled . Any advice ?

Many thanks

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