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Acer Travelmate 5530G with upgraded VGA

 

Hi!
I'd like to contribute with some debugging information. My laptop is a 2008
model Travelmate 5530G, which originally came with an ATI HD3200 + HD3470
Hybrid CrossfireX combo (AMD Puma platform, M780G chipset). Since then I
decided to upgrade the HD3470 to a HD3650 and that completely broke my fglrx
configuration so I had to dig around when I decided to use the open-source
radeon driver with KMS and thus direct rendering. While doing that I
stumbled on this and some other sites mentioning vgaswitcheroo and that's
when I got interested.
I know that I didn't exactly increase the odds of having a working hybrid
graphics setup in Linux by customizing my computer, but maybe the data I can
provide will be that much more interesting for you guys :D. Just ask and
I'll gladly tell you more about my new 3650, but all I know right now is
that it's HP-made with 256 MB GDD3 VRAM (600MHz core / 700 MHz memory), and
the guy who sold me said something about the card really being a FireGL
V5700 vBIOS modded to a HD3650 (not sure about this one, though).
My problem is that I've been using a generic 2.6.35.7 kernel straight from
kernel.org with my Debian testing since last year November without realizing
that I could use vgaswitcheroo. Since then I mounted the debugfs and found
out that actually I can't, as the vgaswitcheroo directory doesn't show up. I
did compile the kernel with the necessary settings.
And that's when I tried the acpi_call module as shown here:
http://linux-hybrid-graphics.blogspot.com/2010/07/using-acpicall-module-to-switch-onoff.html
The results:

sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name && sudo dmidecode -s system-version
    TravelMate 5530
    0100

lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGA
    01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc
RS780M/RS780MN [Radeon HD 3200 Graphics] [1002:9612] (prog-if 00 [VGA
controller])
    02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc Mobility
Radeon HD 3650 [1002:9591] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

sudo ./test_off.sh
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P1.VGA._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P2.VGA._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB_.PCI0.OVGA.ATPX: failed
    Trying \_SB_.PCI0.OVGA.XTPX: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P3.PEGP._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P2.PEGP._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P1.PEGP._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.MXR0.MXM0._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.PEG1.GFX0._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.PEG1.GFX0.DOFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.XVR0.Z01I.DGOF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.PEGR.GFX0._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.PEG.VID._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P2.DGPU._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P4.DGPU.DOFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.IXVE.IGPU.DGOF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.RP00.VGA._PS3: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.RP00.VGA.P3MO: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.GFX0.DSM._T_0: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.LPC.EC.PUBS._OFF: failed
    Trying \_SB.PCI0.P0P2.NVID._OFF: failed

The output of the script does explain why vgaswitcheroo didn't show up in
/sys/kernel/debug ...
I'd like to think that my situation isn't hopeless, because right now all I
can get out of my battery is 40 minutes with the 3650 powered on, but not
actually used.