AMD + NVIDIA Laptop Freeze Problem

Can't you just disable the integrated GPU say in the BIOS?

Optimus has long proved its overly complex and users have a difficult time dealing with it. Technically, it should also be true when pairing Intel integrated GPU with dedicated AMD GPU and even two dedicated GPUs. Its always easier and far more simple to have one.

Also technically eg: Clicking on wifi/speaker/battery icon should not result in both GPU's having a conflict or something else to cause that. Windows should know which GPU to do the acceleration on and it should work smoothly. Its entirely possible that's caused by something other than Optimus. You could try disabling hardware acceleration for Windows though or disabling one GPU. If it still happens then look elsewhere for a new reason.

Thank you for your answer.

I bought a laptop with two GPUs so I would like to use both of them, therefore disabling one GPU is not really an option. Integrated GPU saves your battery life, decreases fan usage and in case of AMD it provides far superior compatibility with legacy apps. I don't want to abandon one entire GPU (I paid 6k for this laptop so I want to use the entirety of it) because of a Microsoft/AMD bug on a software (driver) level.

If you're asking to turn off Hybrid Mode just to check if bugs occur with only one GPU running, then no, they don't. Running strictly on NVIDIA GPU makes all the stutters disappear as the dGPU is constantly awake. Infact, if you have stutters on iGPU and you turn on an app that requires NVIDIA GPU, those stutters will not be present for as long as the app is running, further proving that it's a dGPU switching issue (handled by the OS).

Regarding the second part of your message, the reason why OS stutters is because certain elements of UI cause dGPU to wake up, causing a short freeze. This is also the reason why all the UI-related stutters are gone if there is an app running on NVIDIA GPU.

This is an issue first introduced in Windows 10 1709 Fall Creators Update and it happens because GPU switching is handled by the OS. This thread mentions the same issue and also mentions when it started happening on Intel cards:

Windows 10 1709 Fall Creators Update | NVIDIA GeForce Forums

For Intel this was partially resolved by releasing new Windows update and new NVIDIA and INTEL drivers.

[Partially Fixed] Intel + NVIDIA Laptop Freeze Problem - Microsoft Community

Unfortunately it seems this issue is now present on AMD+NVIDIA systems too. It could be either that Microsoft+AMD never resolved the issue for AMD GPUs or maybe there is a regression issue in Windows 11.

To update on the matter I was doing more tests and I have noticed something that makes me think it's Microsoft who should address the issue:

1. The Windows stutter occurs ONLY when a stock WINDOWS app is run by NVIDIA GPU on battery power. Be it scanner app, phone app or even svchost .exe, everything will stutter when it's run by nvidia gpu. Obviously one may say sth along the lines "just don't make them run on dGPU then". Well the problem is apps are FORCED to be run on dGPU if you plug in external display. So it's not possible to choose.

2. Stutters will disappear when you plug laptop to power, close the problematic app OR minimize it. Seriously. Minimize it and then it will stop freezing the OS.

3. Stutters seem to appear only on apps that are running on iGPU, even though they are caused by apps running on dGPU. What does it mean? Eg. if you turn on a game that uses iGPU while your OS stutters, it will stutter too. But if the same game is set to use NVIDIA GPU, it will not stutter, even though the rest of the OS freezes every 10-20 seconds.

4. When I turn on a game that stutters and set overlays via eg CapFrameX, what I see is that whenever a game stutters, GPU PCIE Rx jumps from 0MB/s to as far as 123MB/s and PCIE Tx jumps from 0 to 13MB/s. This issue disappears when a problematic app is turned off, or when I plug laptop to power.

This makes me even more convinced it is a MICROSOFT WINDOWS issue that MICROSOFT should try to fix.

Hey man, same thing happening on my system and it's so annoying I'm honestly done with dual GPU optimus bs. Never buying a gaming laptop again unless they ship a single high perf GPU that has efficiency cores for normal stuff. Switching between GPUs is so overly complex and no doubt causing us these massive array of bugs that will probably never get resolved...

I get your struggle man. It seems PCs are going back to 1990s with the hardware hell. Back then it was multiple GPUs to get 2D and 3D acceleration and graphics libraries customised for specific GPU brand, today it's 2 GPUs an drivers to get stutters anyway lmao... This is a disgrace, especially considering it's an 8 years old issue.

I don't know what Microsoft is doing with their OS but it feels like they never used it on a laptop. Nvidia Optimus technology has been around since Windows 7 while the issue been first reported over 8 years ago. How come nobody has fixed it yet? Brand new laptops are coming out each year boasting about their efficient dual GPUs providing both performance and battery life... Yet the fact is it only provides an unusable mess of a hardware. A scam.

I have lenovo legion 5 with i7 11800H CPU and rtx 3060 and I have the same issue that you described with latests windows 10 and intel , nvidia drivers the odd thing is I also have HP omen 16 with i7 11800H and rtx 3060 but it doesn’t have this issue at all so is it lenovo”s fault or what

I have the same issue. Think that there is Windows problem.

As a workaround you can try this:

https://github.com/jobeid/TrayPwrD3

It's long term issue and I hope someone fix it officially.

I have the same issue. Think that there is Windows problem.

As a workaround you can try this:

https://github.com/jobeid/TrayPwrD3

It's long term issue and I hope someone fix it officially.

I have the same problem here

I tried this software and it does its job well

but one of the two rams got corrupted, but I can't tell for sure if it is the reason or not

one other solution is to turn hybrid mode off, but you will lose power saving