Laptop with Intel HD Graphics + Nvidia card - when are the two used?

Well, not as I'd like - what I've learnt is
a. I've no control over the switch
b. I've no programs (probably) that will ever use my Nvidia card
c. I made a blind assumption when specifying this laptop that having a discrete graphics card would be useful
d. That the card is working (only evidence, one particular benchmarking program).

Anyone want an Nvidia card? (ex laptop)? (And yes, most of the back cover does come off on this one.. which also has very good ventilation).

Just wondering what the effect of disabling the Intel graphics would be in Device manager- a blank screen? OR same as in Safe Mode? Or would the Nvidia card then handle everything?

Have you checked in your BIOS? OK, I have a desktop, but the option to select my graphics, I can turned integrated off, and just use discreet.
I was in a rush before, sorry dal.
This is what I'm talking about if you have something like it in your UEFI/BIOS:

Thanks, Ha... good idea, but my BIOS is a joke.. cut down doesn't do it justice. It's something I didn't even think to ask about before buying. There used to be a little more on earlier releases of this model.

No, nothing useful there. About 4 tabs, UEFI, Boot order, something else.

From what I've read, disabling the Intel integrated graphics is not a good idea.

dalchina said:

Thanks, Ha... good idea, but my BIOS is a joke.. cut down doesn't do it justice. It's something I didn't even think to ask about before buying. There used to be a little more on earlier releases of this model.

No, nothing useful there. About 4 tabs, UEFI, Boot order, something else.

From what I've read, disabling the Intel integrated graphics is not a good idea.

Actually if you can, and just use the GPU, it's much better, as your CPU will not have to work double so hard doing normal things(programs plus graphics) and leaves more cores and threads free to do "real" work. Plus the CPU will stay cooler when idleing or doing light work.