Win 10 detecting but not enabling Nvidia GT 520 M

mrtom

After upgrading my MSI CX640 16Y1 from W7 to W 10, device manager under display adapter shows both the Intel HD 3000 and the Nvidia GT 520 M as enabled.
I can access the Nvidia Control Panel, and thru G force experience update the drivers. However there is a icon “Nvidia GPU Activity” in the noticification area saying “There are no applications running on ths GPU”. So I imagine the graphics are provided by the i3 CPU. An inferior configuration for performance. In the previous W 7 OS there was only one entry in display devices; Nvidia, not two as present.
I have checked bios and there is no entry regarding graphics.
So has anyone come accross a solution to this issue ?

SickBoy

mrtom wrote: »

After upgrading my MSI CX640 16Y1 from W7 to W 10, device manager under display adapter shows both the Intel HD 3000 and the Nvidia GT 520 M as enabled.
I can access the Nvidia Control Panel, and thru G force experience update the drivers. However there is a icon “Nvidia GPU Activity” in the noticification area saying “There are no applications running on ths GPU”. So I imagine the graphics are provided by the i3 CPU. An inferior configuration for performance. In the previous W 7 OS there was only one entry in display devices; Nvidia, not two as present.
I have checked bios and there is no entry regarding graphics.
So has anyone come accross a solution to this issue ?

It's a battery saving feature. When something graphically demanding runs it will switch to the Nvidia GPU.

mrtom

SickBoy wrote: »

It's a battery saving feature. When something graphically demanding runs it will switch to the Nvidia GPU.

So this "switichable" feature came with the W 10 install as this didn't happen with the previous W 7 OS ?

SickBoy

mrtom wrote: »

So this "switichable" feature came with the W 10 install as this didn't happen with the previous W 7 OS ?

Maybe the driver installation wasn't right in Windows 7.
Check out http://www.nvidia.com/object/optimus_technology.html for details.

mrtom

Ok. In the Nvidia Controll Panel there is only one entry, "3 D Settings", seems a bit thin!

Riesen_Meal

mrtom wrote: »

Ok. In the Nvidia Controll Panel there is only one entry, "3 D Settings", seems a bit thin!

Yeah you should be seeing more than that, I think there may be 4 options for it...

Delete any Nvidia drivers you see and start fresh with the Windows 10 driver from the Nvidia site and you should be alright...

Windows update may have auto downloaded the wrong driver...

mrtom

Fieldog wrote: »

Yeah you should be seeing more than that, I think there may be 4 options for it...

Delete any Nvidia drivers you see and start fresh with the Windows 10 driver from the Nvidia site and you should be alright...

Windows update may have auto downloaded the wrong driver...

Have done that earlier while troubleshooting, uninstalled Nvidia & downloaded windows video driver ...no change in behaviour described.

ED E

Have you actually tried running a game?

mrtom

ED E wrote: »

Have you actually tried running a game?

No, dont have any ! Ran high bit rate 1080p movie in VLC and got a msg in Nvidia pop up saying "lockapp.exe running".?? Movie plays fine but I still dont know which GPU is running.

TerrorFirmer

This is perfectly normal and this is how every Nvidia equipped laptop works - it's called Optimus. It switches to the GPU when it needs to. The notification may be new, but the process itself works the same under Windows 7 as well. I'm not sure why you would be worried really - the GT520 is a rather pointless graphics card as it's very slow and not really any faster than the HD3000 either.

ED E

Exactly as Terror has said.

You dont need it
If you did need it it would be sh1t

/thread

mrtom

I didn't know Optimus was about in this early low end card. In the Nvidia Controll Panel there is only one entry, "3 D Settings", seems a bit thin!
As you may gather, I'm not a gamer, occasionaly I let rip with the default pinball game. Got it ! Though I still dont understand "lockapp".

mrtom

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

This is perfectly normal and this is how every Nvidia equipped laptop works - it's called Optimus. It switches to the GPU when it needs to. The notification may be new, but the process itself works the same under Windows 7 as well. I'm not sure why you would be worried really - the GT520 is a rather pointless graphics card as it's very slow and not really any faster than the HD3000 either.

I'm not realy concerned about gaming just checking my configuration.
Does this image (attch) indicate how NVIDIA® Optimus™ functions ?

TerrorFirmer

Physx is a physics engine used in some games. It has nothing to do with normal use of a desktop and is nothing to worry about.