sony-vaio-z-series team mailing list archive

[Raphael Gradenwitz <raphael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Thomas,

Am Donnerstag, den 05.11.2009, 19:30 +0100 schrieb Thomas Jensen:
> I've stumpled upon an alternative method to activating the Nvidia card, 
> which I would like to share with you. Maybe it can be used for creating 
> a better method of activating the card, than the current ones.

What 'current ones' do you mean?

> 
> It happend when I was trying to install Mac OS X (Snow Leopard) on my 
> Vaio, using the Rebel EFI from Psystar.com. To install it, you have to 
> boot on a CD containing the Rebel EFI and then insert the Mac OS X dvd 
> and the installation starts.
> 
> On my computer, the installation process fails after a minute or so and 
> freezes the computer, with the apple logo on the screen. Now this is 
> where the "magic" begins. Only way to get out of the freeeze is to press 
> and hold the power button and then the computer shuts down. But when you 
> turn it on again, the Stamina - Speed button lights up, instantly and 
> stays lit when booting into Kubuntu, and the Nvidia card is activatet 
> and as far as I can see, the Intel card is shut off, it is nowhere to be 
> found in lspci and sudo lshw,

but.. that is nothing new. Excuse me, but that is ooooold!

The same happens when you boot a Windows-XP CD and reboots before it
realy starts.

But a lot easier is to use the Kernel Comandline

        acpi_osi="!Windows 2006"

that makes the Z(21) behave like you described here on the follow-up
boot. Completely without any detours via XP or Mac OS X etc. pp.

> 
> 
> The downside is, that when you shutdown Kubuntu, the Nvidia card is 
> deactivatet again and you have to start the Mac OS X installation again.

That is where the Kernel Comandline is for. That step via the Mac-OS X
installation is way more complicated ;-)

> 
> A funny thing is, that if you boot into Vista after the failed Max OS X 
> installation, it can't find any graphic cards what so ever, which 
> results in a very low resolution.

That is nothing new either. Vista needs a different _OSI section in the
DSDT. The one we want for Linux (the one that behaves like you
'discoverd') is not suitable for the Vista hybrid-graphics switch
solution.

> You actually have to boot into Kubuntu 
> and do a shutdown, before you can boot into windows. I've even tried 
> taking out the battery to turn of the Nvidia card, but no, it just stays 
> activated until you do a nice shutdown from Kubuntu :o)
> 
> I hope you can use this for something :o)

Please READ this:

http://global-social.net/tiki-view_blog.php?blogId=3

Regards,

Raphael