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Problem: Unable to control screen resolution, brightness, and fractional scaling.

Details: Dell Inspiron 14 7000 NVIDIA Corporation GP107M [GeForce MX350] Currently using nvidia-driver-455 - distro non-free recommended

What have I tried? I have installed the drivers using GUI and command line. This included entering a MOK key when restarting at times. I tried the nvidia-driver-450 (which comes as default) and nvidia-driver-455 with no success. Settings still reported an "unknown display" and no control of resolution or brightness (keyboard buttons). I have read the information here and followed the top answer and the included link. Later tried to set Nouveau driver but Ubuntu system did not run. I just did a format and re-installation for a fresh Ubuntu system, went again for the nvidia-driver-455 and the problem persists. Currently nvidia-settings shows the following

(nvidia-settings:8330): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 00:13:35.897: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

ERROR: nvidia-settings could not find the registry key file. This file should have been installed along
       with this driver at /usr/share/nvidia/nvidia-application-profiles-key-documentation. The
       application profiles will continue to work, but values cannot be prepopulated or validated, and
       will not be listed in the help text. Please see the README for possible values and descriptions.


** Message: 00:13:35.930: PRIME: No offloading required. Abort
** Message: 00:13:35.930: PRIME: is it supported? no

and opens NVIDIA X Server Settings in a window with all details. nvidia-smi command shows the following.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 455.38       Driver Version: 455.38       CUDA Version: 11.1     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce MX350       Off  | 00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   56C    P8    N/A /  N/A |      9MiB /  2002MiB |      0%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A       801      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                  4MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      1374      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                  4MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I noticed the screen showed some lines when trying to go to suspension (which I don't think it does), the relevant one is: [ 395.973798] skl_hda_dsp_generic skl_hda_dsp_generic: ASoC: failed to init link iDisp1: -517

P.S. The audio drivers don't work either, maybe for a later attempt/thread.

EDIT 06/01/2021 lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display' returns

0000:00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a49 (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Dell Device 09d9
    Kernel modules: i915
0000:00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a03 (rev 01)
--
0000:01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP107M [GeForce MX350] (rev a1)
    Subsystem: Dell GP107M [GeForce MX350]
    Kernel driver in use: nvidia
    Kernel modules: nvidiafb, nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
Jorge
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1 Answers1

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12/01/2021. Exact and detailed steps I followed to solve the problem (note there may be unnecessary steps, but it's the best I can do given my expertise).

First, I found out prime-select query outputs the current setting for display, in this case nvidia or intel. Switching to intel (or nvidia) is possible with sudo prime-select intel (or sudo prime-select nvidia). After selecting intel and rebooting, the problem persisted.

Second, I read Peter's notes. Did some careful reading - mind! I did not follow his instructions from Ubuntu installation -, particularly the seven steps just above "Install NVIDIA driver" which I replicate here for redundancy: " 1. Open the terminal. 2. Type sudo gedit /etc/default/grub . 3. Change the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nouveau.modeset=0" . 4. Press “Save” and close the window. 5. In the terminal, type sudo update-grub2 . 6. Reboot. 7. Select Ubuntu. If you want to boot into Ubuntu, you can add either nomodeset or nouveau.modeset=0 in the boot option. However you cannot adjust the screen brightness if you use the former one. And remember, only nomodeset works for installing Ubuntu. Using nouveau.modeset=0 for the installation boot will fail. " (Peter Pang, 2018). Reboot and problem persists.

Third, I followed the author's advice to install tlp and powertop to improve battery life. Reboot and seemed fans didn't spin as fast as before. At this point, try rebooting few times and it might solve the problem (I suspect the above might be enough).

Fourth, I went on and started to follow steps by yatritrivedi to create a shared NTFS partition, I input the following in this order: sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g,sudo mkdir /media/storage,sudo mkdir /mnt/storage,sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.backup,sudo cp /etc/fstab.backup /etc/fstab,sudo blkid,reboot. With an screen fixed to 2560x1600, I had it set to 200% scaling (big letters and icons) but for some reason the log in screen always appeared with 100% scaling. This time after reboot, login screen appeared at 200% scaling as well, which gave me hope something had changed.

Pressed the brightness button in keyboard and it worked! Went to Settings > Screen Display and voilà! I have a "Built-in Display" and a couple dozens of resolutions to choose from. I left the resolution as it was, activated fractional scaling and adjusted to 150%.

This solved it for me and hope it helps anyone else with same or similar problems.

P.S. Time to look at the sound problem.

Jorge
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