(Help) [GT 555M / Dell XPS L702X / Ubuntu 13.04] Step-by-step Bumblebee to NVidia proprietary

Hi, i’m currently using Bumbleblee on my Dell XPS L702X with Ubuntu 13.04 x64
I’m kinda new to Linux and i took time to make Bumblebee work on my GT555M because of Optimus.
I would like to know how to properly uninstall Bumblebee and all these things, and then install and setup the Nvidia proprietary drivers (Lastest is 325.15).

Also (and that may be related or not) i have noticied that after installing Ubuntu i’m experiencing some kind of “freez” (The screen goes full grey or any other color then sometimes turn black), that’s only happening when i try to run games (on Windows my GPU is at ~90°C after 1h of gaming and 70°C on idle), i also hear that the fans aren’t running as fast as on windows when i play.

(I can’t get temperatue info on Linux lm-sensors only shows the 8 processors charge and 2 virtual Temp)

Thanks for your help :)

nvidia-smi on Linux should display GPU temperature.

Changing fan speeds is going to be either a pain or impossible on Optimus w/ Bumblebee, you’d have to add the coolbits flag in your bumblebee xorg.conf, and even then I don’t remember if it actually populates correctly to be able to change the values via nvidia-settings. I haven’t tried the native workaround, so I’m not sure you’re able to change it that way either.

I’m assuming you’re looking to run the latest driver natively with xrandr 1.4 and dump Bumblebee – Look around this forum, there have been various threads of user’s experiences and how-to’s… but it might not be terribly straightforward.

I can’t run “nvidia-smi” as i have no proprietary drivers installed
I’m going to try to manually uninstall and set up the proprietary drivers.

Ok, so i Uninstalled every graphic card related package (Bumblebee-nvidia, nvidia-current and nvidia-104 from memory)
Then i installed the lastest drivers (325.15) by doing:

  1. 'Ctrl + Alt + f2'
  2. Logging
  3. ' ``` service lightdm stop ``` '
  4. ' ``` sh ./Downloads/NVIDIA-[...].run ``` '
  5. Saying "yes" to everything

After reboot i’m having lot of troubles:

  • After booting the screen is stuck in 640*480
  • Error message after logging:
    none of the selected modes were compatible with the possible modes:
    Trying modes for CRTC 63
    CRTC 63: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
    CRTC 63: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
    Trying modes for CRTC 64
    CRTC 64: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 0)
    CRTC 64: trying mode 640x480@60Hz with output at 1920x1080@60Hz (pass 1)
    
  • When doing "nvidia-settings" message on the GUI:
    You do not appear to be using the NVIDIA X driver.  Please edit your X configuration file (just run `nvidia-xconfig` as root), and restart the X server.
    
  • NO UNITY, nothing showing up ... no menus, nothing ...

The screen resolution is fixed by removing xorg.conf (“rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf”)
But when i do an “nvidia-config” and reboot, it goes back to 640*480

here is my “xorg.conf” file:

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 304.88  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-06)  Wed Mar 27 15:32:58 PDT 2013

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Please help :)

When you mentioned you had Bumblebee installed, I assumed that you would have been running it with the NVIDIA drivers vs nouveau – if you were running with the latter, it doesn’t surprise me that you had issues.

With any system that has Optimus, you’re not going to be able to just install the newest drivers and having it work out of the box – it requires a specific setup,

In case you haven’t seen it yet, the thread on getting drivers to work natively that I was referencing is this one:

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/539322/linux/blank-screen-with-319-12-on-optimus-laptop/

Specifically linked from that long thread, one of the last posts points to a how-to on how to accomplish what you’d like:

http://zeronteproject.tk/contents/content.php?topic=Linux&postid=70

For completeness, here is another thread that goes through some of the setup needed for one particular user:

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/564467/linux/how-do-i-make-the-nvidia-graphics-card-the-default-in-my-laptop-/