gpuDevice crashing entire system

So, I'm working on windows 7, matlab version r2013a.

Calling the gpuDevice function results in 1-2 seconds of pause, a "nvidia geforce gtx 660m device is not removable and cannot be ejected or unplugged" error message, that also happens to freeze my computer (can only force shut down to get out of this). I tried updating drivers, I tried downloading and installing CUDA kit, nothing helped.

Does anyone have an idea of what might be causing this, and how to go about making it work?

Answer 1

[Joss Knight]

Hi. This issue arises when a laptop reverts to using the integrated graphics chip instead of the NVIDIA device. There are two usual ways to get around it:

1. If your laptop is in a lower power mode, this can force use of integrated graphics. Try changing your power settings to the highest performance and retry.
2. In the NVIDIA Control Panel (available through the right-click menu on the desktop) you can set the 'Preferred graphics processor', either for individual programs, or globally for all programs. Change this to "High-performance NVIDIA processor" for MATLAB and retry. This setting is usually also available within the right-click context menu for your MATLAB shortcut icon.

In both cases you may have to reboot your machine for the changes to take effect.