I am relatively new to Linux, specifically I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on HP laptop with i7-2630qm with Intel HD 3000 graphics and discrete AMD Radeon HD6490M 1GB DDR5. The reason I started using it is that Radeon GPU is dead (it either needs reballing or chip is dead) and fixing it right now is financially impossible, so I want to disable it, but since it is HP laptop BIOS is locked and there is no option to use only integrated GPU. I tried switcheroo metod but it didn't work. After that I found thread that suggested adding radeon.rdm=1 as Grub parameter but it also failed, as well as blacklisting radeon in modprobe.
Only way I managed to disable it is by installing fglrx drivers and running command:
sudo aticonfig --initial --px-igpu --effective=startup
in failsafe mode after which it manages to boot into normal mode, but problem with that is that every reboot, shutdown or suspension is possibility that it will crash on boot or resume, which leads to about half hour of rebooting into failsafe mode and typing command over and over again until it gets picked up and laptop boots normally with Radeon GPU disabled.
After all this rambling my question is if anybody knows any better way of disabling Radeon GPU so that it becomes more permanent solution?
Could you unplug it from the board or is it soldered?
Soldered unfortunately.. I wouldn't mind unsoldering it from board but I can't find any info if it would work after that.
what kernel version are you running?
3.16.0-43-generic, default that came with install.
You're laptop should be fine if it's dual graphics. The card itself may never work again though
You can try to remove or blacklist the AMD driver (open and non-open).
That way the OS should be forced to use the Intel GPU only.
Yes it's dual graphics. I will try that as a last resort if everything else fails. Thank you for help.
I tried doing that, but after blacklisting AMD driver it would boot every time but in failsafe and with 1024x768 resolution with no option to change it..
Was the intel Open driver installed?
If it's not included with Ubuntu then it wasn't. I followed some pretty vague tutorial on how to blacklist radeon and it didn't mention anything about Intel Open driver. As far as I know there might be some steps that weren't included and that's reason it failed but it was only thing I could follow, since I'm noob when it comes to linux. This is what tutorial said if it's any help:
"Add this to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
blacklist fglrx
blacklist radeon
alias radeon off
alias lbm-radeon off"
Quick edit: it also sugested to add nomodeset as parameter instead of quiet splash.
It is included with Ubuntu but if you added the proriatory driver it might have been removed.
I reinstalled drivers and removed blacklists. added blacklist again and removed nomodeset parameter from grub. After that it boots normally, radeon is still shown when I enter lspci | grep VGA and temps are about 10 degrees higher than normal but it didn't crash once in about 15-20 reboots and forced shutdowns by holding power button, so I think I can live with that.
Thank you for your help, I appreciate it very much.