Is it safe to unplug laptop GPU?


  • Banned

    Anyone tried or heard of physically unplugging the cables connecting dedicated GPU to mobo? If so, what are the consequences except for not being able to use dedicated GPU (which I can't anyway)? I'd try it myself, but at the moment it's my only programming-capable computer, and I can't afford another one, so I don't want to brick it or set it on fire.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    I've heard of disabling it in the BIOS, but it's usually not possible to "unplug" a laptop's discrete graphics unit like that...


  • FoxDev

    @gąska said in Is it safe to unplug laptop GPU?:

    Anyone tried or heard of physically unplugging the cables connecting dedicated GPU to mobo? If so, what are the consequences except for not being able to use dedicated GPU (which I can't anyway)? I'd try it myself, but at the moment it's my only programming-capable computer, and I can't afford another one, so I don't want to brick it or set it on fire.

    if the laptop has a physically separate GPU that can be unplugged..... so long as you are careful that should not cause an issue, though you may find your external video outputs and/or screen become nonfucntional. a lot of laptops with dGPUs and iGPUs use the dGPU as a passthrough for the iGPU when the dGPU cores are powered down. if your laptop is that layout you won't be able to use any output directly conencted to the dGPU that you just unplugged.

    if you want to disable the dGPU for reasons i would recommend doing so in the BIOS if at all possible. that will have the effect of unplugging it without the sideeffect of possibly removing all video out from your laptop.



  • @gąska What goal are you trying to accomplish? Removing it so you can later replace it with a working one? Or just to extend battery life?

    If the former, I'd wait until you didn't absolutely need to critically rely on the machine before trying it.

    If the latter, disabling it in BIOS should have the same effect without the risk of breaking shit.


  • Banned

    @tsaukpaetra said in Is it safe to unplug laptop GPU?:

    I've heard of disabling it in the BIOS, but it's usually not possible to "unplug" a laptop's discrete graphics unit like that...

    Acers ship with a castrated BIOS where you can't set almost anything.

    @blakeyrat said in Is it safe to unplug laptop GPU?:

    @gąska What goal are you trying to accomplish? Removing it so you can later replace it with a working one? Or just to extend battery life?

    I disabled my GPU in Device Manager for a very good reason, and Fall Creators update must be re-enabling it during update, since it hung up twice on 33% just after the screen turned off and back on (ie. switched video mode, ie. messed with devices or drivers). I hoped that physically removing it (because disabling in BIOS is not an option) might have helped. For now, I just made the update hidden, but with Microsoft's new update policy, I know it's not a lasting solution.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @gąska said in Is it safe to unplug laptop GPU?:

    Acers ship with a castrated BIOS where you can't set almost anything.

    Some of them apparently let you unlock them with a magic keystroke.

    Maybe you could try it? Supposedly you enter the BIOS press Fn+Tab, save and reboot, and the next BIOS entry it should be slightly more unlocked.


  • Banned

    @tsaukpaetra of course I tried that. It's like, first result on the second page of Google - how could I miss that? Though you forgot it was a Russian hacker talking about his hacked BIOS.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @gąska said in Is it safe to unplug laptop GPU?:

    @tsaukpaetra of course I tried that. It's like, first result on the second page of Google - how could I miss that? Though you forgot it was a Russian hacker talking about his hacked BIOS.

    One is glad to be of service.


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