Turning off graphics card

[Pauli Nieminen]

On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 9:12 AM, Til Schubbe <lists at lists.schubbe.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> my computer is running 24/7. Normally there's nothing difficult to
> do for the graphics card so the built-in motherboard-graphics card
> is sufficient.
>
> Sometimes I need some more graphics-power. In that case I'd like to
> turn on the PCIe graphics card, run a 2nd x-server on it and some
> power-consuming app (game) on that 2nd x-server. Finished with that
> app I want to stop the 2nd x-server and turn off the PCIe graphics
> card again.
>
> Running the PCIe graphics card (e.g. Radeon 4670) all the time
> would be a waste of energy and would make the fans run quicker and
> louder.
>
> Can I turn off (and on) a PCIe graphics card while the computer is
> running?
>

The feature is work in progress and you can read about it from
http://airlied.livejournal.com/

> If that's the wrong place to ask this, please point me to the
> right direction (perhaps the kernel-ML?).
>
> TIA
> Til
>
> PS: The computer is running Debian Lenny.