Nvidia optimus laptops are a total nightmare!!! BEWARE!!!

[kostyka]

Hey everybody, this needs to be news:

 

Are you considering buying an nvidia optimus discrete graphics card laptop?! You've seen a few youtube reviews or read a few articles and think you're all set, as we did..., you might be in for the nasty surprise we were in for! An already large and growing number of optimus laptops (1050, 1050ti, 1060, 1070 + intel integrated graphics) showcase micro-stuttering and momentary freezing when starting up applications, when clicking the right mouse button, or when changing certain win10 settings, and I'm talking about new laptops, yes, the ones you're considering purchasing!

 

There is a microsoft forum complaints thread that's already got:

14293 views

46 pages

new people complaining every single day

no official fixes from nobody - nvidia, intel, microsoft

 

Anyways, a small community formed around us people plagued by this issue, and we're trying to get the attention of tech news outlets, tech forums, youtube tech guys, anyone that can bring this to light.

Because outside of forums nobody is talking about these stuttering freezing laptops, and this needs to change, people needs to avoid them and nvidia, intel and microsoft need to fix them ASAP.

 

Check out the microsoft forum (i'll link it below) or google "intel + nvidia laptop freeze problem", check out on the microsoft forum results. Although there's tons of complaints on other platforms, on nvidia forums, intel forums and so on. This affects all brands and all makes so it's not manufacturer or price point dependent, so I think it's worth looking into, if you wanna purchase or if you're already affected or if you know someone who's considering an nvidia driven laptop. Almost all nvidia discrete graphics card laptops feature the optimus technology and it's kind of a lottery whether or not you'll be affected, better get documented.

 

Also, if you can - twitter about it, send mails to tech news outlets, I dunno, get the attention of the man himself - Linus, help us out! More details on the microsoft page for everyone.

 

Here it is: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/mobile-gtx-1060-freeze-problem/93e7004a-62b1-4211-8e37-4c136608865e

 

 

 

[ItsMitch]

why the cancer title

[kostyka]

to get some attention, sorry for the spammy title.. anyways, the problem is real, and it needs some exposure, it affects a lot of people and if you were to make a purchase based, say, on a video review, you'd have no idea about it, nobody (big) is talking about it. Meanwhile there's tons of people who can't listen to music and open firefox without a second of freeze, or click their right mouse button without another momentary full system freeze. I didn't mean to be offensive, either way!

[Theguywhobea]

Why don't you calm down and try to figure out a fix or work around yourself. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Theguywhobea said:

If you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

No, Companies should make quality products. 

[kostyka]

Hey Theguywhobea, if I knew anything about software engineering I'd definitely tinker around.. But here's a way to look at it: you buy your shiny new laptop, all great specs, awesome reviews, awesome looking videos online, all praises everywhere, anyway, all cool and dandy, then you go to change your walpaper and the thing freezes. Then you click on your browser and it freezes, then you play a song, open some other app and it freezes for a second again. Then you find out that you're not the only one, there's very likely thousands of laptops with the same bug and others are being made and shipped possibly many of which with the very same problem, and months and months go by and there is STILL no fix.

 

Then you kinda begin having a hard time staying chill (I'm chill though, I'm just trying to make my point!). Yep, there are some workarounds for this, as I'm typing I have this mini app that keeps my dgpu on and idling, some tinkering within windows' registry, but there are still instances where freezes occur.

AND THAT'S WHY AN OFFICIAL FIX NEEDS TO HAPPEN!!

 

Sure I'm all for DIY but this is beyound DIY - IT'S BEYOND DIY!!!!

 

DrMacintosh knows what's up. THEY need to FIX THIS.

[genexis_x]

I noticed this but it's fairly easy to fix. Just set the preferred GPU for each program instead of auto select. (In my case, Chrome and all games are set to use dGPU)

 

Also please follow the forum's guidelines especially on what you've wrote

[kostyka]

@ZM Fong - That would be sweet if it worked that way, so simple and straightforward. I know you're trying to help, but believe me it's not a - this guy doesn't know how to manage some simple settings for his machine. It's a bug that doesn't care for whatever gpu you're assigning from the nvidia control panel. They symptoms are persistent regardless of this setting. This needs a well thought out patch, that resolves the awkward interaction between dgpu assignment and os anomalous freezing. There's stuttering and some mysterious loading in the background that's accompanying starting up certain processes, not all of them of everyday programs, there's battery life considerations, there's productivity considerations, there's people using their laptops for all sorts of different things. I mean, if you're a musician and you're using a stuttering laptop to stream music to some external controller a half a second stutter can basically cripple a live performance, and that's just one use case.

 

Anyways, while there are workarounds, I just wanna see nvidia and intel and microsoft give a damn. It's been months since this has been known and reported and laptop manufacturers continue to produce and deliver defective laptops.

 

It's also that nvidia optimus technology in all the years since it's been a thing and there's a few, it's never been trully polished and user friendly. It's always been a glitched out mess that nobody has ever really made a big deal about.

 

I wish I'd never bought an optimus laptop, that's for sure.

[Zodiark1593]

My 2010 HP laptop from 2010 with Intel/AMD switchable graphics got no support whatsoever with HP, which didn't sit well as StarCraft 2 crashed on the "supported" drivers. AMD at the time wanted nothing to do with Intel/AMD combo graphics, so reference drivers would not install either.

 

Luckily, community to the rescue, and with some hacked drivers, I can even run Win 10 on the thing. This laptop is still being used to this day actually. I put in a new cpu and SSD.

[kostyka]

Tnx 4 sharing Zodiark1593! I dunno, maybe it's really that hard of a challenge to properly implement these switchable graphics.. but they sure know how to collect the cash, no problem there, no engineering difficulty in that regard, no goddamn drivers not working properly. You'd think a "measly" 1000$ or more, lots more, would earn you a fully operational machine, guess not! No point getting angry again though..

 

I'm actually looking forward to seeing what those intel+amd chips are gonna be like, and MAYBE, HOPEFULLY this new generation of nvidia graphics cards will bring some fundamental change to how switchable graphics work in laptops, or even better, get rid of it altogether, implement some sort of significantly low power mode for the laptop dgpu and kick it full power draw, max performance only in games or when plugged in. Though maybe they would screw that up as well, given all this relentless history of optimus being a mess and not doing much about it.

 

Also, I kinda wish I'd done the very same thing - hold on to my old battered laptop, just see what was gonna come out this year, maybe even 2019.

One thing is for sure, I'm not making the mistake of trusting no reviews or youtube videos so much. Only gloss and glamour. No way, I'll be down in the trenches and the forums seeing what problems people are reporting, what's the true face of the product.

 

In some way I'm even a little mad at people like Linus - he must have tinkered with a ton of optimus laptops 2016, 2017 and it just can't be that ALL of them were these perfect, flawless switching machines. I dunno how something this big went unreported, unknown, undiscussed by all these youtube tech guys. Like, if I were just a little more prone to conspiracy theory craziness, I'd even venture to say that they must have somehow covered this whole dgpu stuttering problem. Or maybe in the end it's just not that big of a deal or really not that common..

 

My last laptop was a 2013 purchase and I kinda lost touch with what was going on in the laptop world since then. I didn't know that switchable graphics would still be this nightmare, and this is the 6th or 7th generation of switchable nvidia graphics..