Thinkpad T530 with Optimus and Docking Station

Posted by Vic Boudolf on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by Vic Boudolf
Published on 2012-10-12T20:30:40Z Indexed on 2012/10/12 21:48 UTC
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Filed under:

12.04

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laptop

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nvidia-optimus

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bumblebee

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vgaswitcheroo

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T530 with Optimus video, which is not supported on 12.04.1.

I don't normally need the discrete (nVidia) graphics, so I turn it off in the BIOS settings to achieve longer battery life (and so that the screen dimmer will work), but when placed in the docking station, the integrated (Intel) graphics don't power the HDMI ports. (The VGA port does work, but I want to focus on the HDMI.)

This means I have to change the BIOS settings constantly.

Is there any way to have the system detect the docking station and power up/enable the discrete graphics accordingly? I don't need to do it on the fly. Just at startup.

This post suggests that bumblebee can turn the discrete graphics on and off for specific applications, but I just want to turn it on or off. [2 suggests that vga_switcheroo will not work with nVidia Optimus.

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