How to turn off ATI adapter on Acer Timeline 4810G with ubuntu 9.10

Question

I can't turn off my ATI adapter. I have applied the fix, but still lspci | grep VGA gives

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M92 LP [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series] (rev ff)

and my power consumption is about 15W (Wi-Fi on).

I run ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-14-generic. BIOS version 2.30

Answer 1

I think that lspci still shows the ATI card after it has been disabled using the fix.

I just applied that fix on my Timeline 4810G running Ubuntu 10.04, the power consumption dropped from 22W to about 12W, but the ATI card is still listed by lspci.

So my guess is that your ATI card is disabled. You might want to check by looking for the following line in your /var/log/messages :

lenovo_acpi: disabled the discrete graphics card

Answer 2

There is another option that will not depend on the SO: The BIOS.

I found a MODDED BIOS that permits the selection between INTEGATED / ATI:
http://forum.ixbt.com/topic.cgi?id=17:38124:288#288
http://www.mediafire.com/?8jdklwcjovofzp6

I have it installed right now on a 5810TG (it fits the 4810 also) but I can see now why ACER did not release such an option: the 5810TG won't reboot properly if INTEGRATED is selected! (works fine though, as the SO recognizes only 1 card, and the other will presumably will stay turned off, not drawing any power).