I’m trying to install arch for the first time and I’m using an old laptop i had lying around.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this laptop’s dgpu is dead as i get video output up until the OS initializes. (With arch I can’t get past choosing the installation medium, with windows I don’t get any output when the os should start loading the login screen) The screen goes black but doesn’t turn off and in windows the keyboard’s rgb lights respond to fn presses (though this doesn’t happen in arch)

I’ve been searching for a way to prioritize the igpu as a way to circumvent the hardware failure, though I’m starting to think this may not be possible in the kernel parameters.

Edit: managed to get through posting windows by turning off turbo boost. gonna try and disable the dgpu once i get arch set up as i think it’s a power issue

    • @seaQueue@lemmy.world
      2•7 months ago

      If it’s a hybrid Nvidia laptop this is all you really need to do. Blacklist nouveau and a couple of other minor drivers for the hardware and don’t install the Nvidia dkms package and you’re off to the races.

  • Cralder
    3•7 months ago

    Damn that’s not the easiest problem. I dont have any solutions unfortunately but have you tested any distros with graphical installers? I’m curious if any of them solve this or if they behave the same as windows.

  • @0x4E4F@infosec.pubEnglish
    2•7 months ago

    It’s probably the other way around, the dedicated GPU is problematic (needs reballing most probably) and the onboard one (on the CPU) is OK. Try to find a hacked BIOS for the laptop that completely disables the dedicated GPU. There were some models that just needed a modded BIOS for this. Others required some hardware intervention as well.

  • @fl42v@lemmy.ml
    2•7 months ago

    If software methods won’t help, you can google smth along the lines of “$laptop_model uma”; usually disabling dgpu in hardware is quite simple, like lifting one coil

    • Good Girl [she/they]OP
      1•6 months ago

      Unfortunately I’m now unconvinced the GPU is the issue. I disabled it completely and turned my CPU’s turbo mode back on but it still gave me the same issue.

      Dunno what to do now, but my laptop works without turbo mode so it’s a fine trade off.

  • @navigatron@beehaw.org
    1•7 months ago

    You’ll need to go into bios. There should be an option to disable the dgpu, or it’s possible you’re in optimus mode

  • @Psynthesis@beehaw.org
    1•7 months ago

    What laptop is it? On some, not many, you can remove the dgpu. If you can access the bios, it wouldn’t hurt to see if you can set priority order for the gpu used. What do you mean you can’t get past choosing the installation medium? To me that means the usb, iso, etc you are using. I’m probably misunderstanding you, but do you mean selecting the medium in the bios boot screen? Or have you gotten to the part where grub shows up and you can select install. If it’s the bios bit, have you turned off secure boot? If it’s after selecting install arch in the grub menu, wait a tiny bit for everything to load and try pressing ctrl-alt-F3. Doesn’t have to be F3 you can try all the “F” keys. This will switch to a different tty to try and see if the default one is being weird Though I doubt that will help, but worth a shot. If you can get to grub have you tried to disable the kernel module that loads for the dgpu? You should be able to press “e” to go to the bit you can edit stuff in grub. Check out this and see if it helps https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel_module#Using_kernel_command_line_2 Best of luck!

    • Good Girl [she/they]OP
      2•7 months ago

      Yeah sorry, I couldn’t think of the word at the time but it doesn’t make it after posting for windows and doesn’t make it past choosing the installation medium.

      I actually got it working by disabling turbo boost so I’ll see if I can install arch and then fully disable the discrete gpu from there.