Not finding Nvidia GPU / nvidia settings not starting

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 on a Dell XPS-15-9560. After installing Ubuntu, I followed this guide

https://github.com/rcasero/doc/wiki/Ubuntu-linux-on-Dell-XPS-15-(9560)

to configure my setup. In my first few months of using this machine, I was concerned about the low battery life and saw that the GPU was using a lot of power when I wasn't using it so I installed nvidia-prime in order to switch to the built in Intel graphics card. As far as I can tell everything worked fine then.

Now, I want to switch to the Nvidia GPU. However

sudo prime-select nvidia

produces output as though the card switched, but nvidia-settings won't start up, and rebooting brings back the Intel card.

Any ideas as to what I should do? I have looked at related posts, but I suspect that the people have further complexities in their setups.

EDIT

As requested by @Terrance, here is the output of

sudo lshw -C display


*-display UNCLAIMED     
   description: 3D controller
   product: NVIDIA Corporation
   vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
   version: a1
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
   configuration: latency=0
   resources: memory:ec000000-ecffffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:ed000000-ed07ffff

*-display
   description: VGA compatible controller
   product: Intel Corporation
   vendor: Intel Corporation
   physical id: 2
   bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
   version: 04
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pciexpress msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
   configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
   resources: irq:130 memory:eb000000-ebffffff memory:80000000-8fffffff ioport:f000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff

Can you please edit your question and add the output of sudo lshw -C display ? — Terrance, Jan 05 '19 at 16:07
Have you tried rebooting after running the sudo prime-select nvidia ? I have seen where in 18.04 it doesn't switch until a reboot is performed. — Terrance, Jan 05 '19 at 23:50
How did you install the drivers for the card? Did you install using NVIDIA's site or did you install using the preferred method of adding the graphics-drivers PPA? — Terrance, Jan 06 '19 at 16:26
The latter, I added the ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa repository — nonreligious, Jan 06 '19 at 19:26
Unfortunately, I wish I could be much more help to you, but since I don't have the same setup you have and my system only has one video card in it I am not any help beyond here. +1 for visibility, but so sorry I am not anymore help. It would only be guesses from here on out. — Terrance, Jan 07 '19 at 15:22
@Terrance No problem, thanks for your time - I'll update this if I ever figure it out. — nonreligious, Jan 07 '19 at 16:17
You can answer your own question if you figure it out. I would totally upvote it as well!. =) — Terrance, Jan 08 '19 at 01:02

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 18 '19 at 18:58

OK, I have appeared to solve the problem. For anyone else interested, I once again added the graphics driver ppa, and installed the nvidia-410 driver:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-367

After doing this, you get a message asking you about disabling UEFI secure boot. Previously (in my "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality) I either avoided doing this, or didn't restart.

Anyway, say "Yes", give the system a password and REMEMBER IT! Then, reboot immediately, and you should get a screen asking you for letters of your password (or disabling Secure Boot) - I forget the order. Just continue cautiously, making sure you disable secure boot with the options presented to you, and choose to reboot.

After logging in, you should see that the NVidia graphics card is working as desired (e.g. in system information).

As for secure boot, is it important? See the discussion here.

I was also having problems using prime-select to switch back to the Intel card (the damn fans were getting too noisy!). Basically, rebooting/logging out after doing sudo prime-select intel gave me a blank screen, that I had to hard reboot and enter safemode to get out of it. The fix was to edit /etc/default/grub, as outlined here. — nonreligious, Jan 19 '19 at 11:38

Not finding Nvidia GPU / nvidia settings not starting

1 Answers1