HD530/GTX960M Only Boots with nogpumanager

Question

I can only boot into Ubuntu 16.10 with the nogpumanager parameter set.

I'm not too familiar with Linux but I wanted to know if this is affecting performance because I'm getting alot of screen tearing. I have used the latest Intel Update Tool to install the driver however I still face issues in playing simple Youtube videos. My laptop is an inspiron 7559 with a 4k screen.I have set the scaling to be quite large but that doesn't seem to have any effect on video playback.

If I boot without nogpumanager in the kernel parameters I receive only a black screen on startup and I then have to shutdown the system via the power button. What can I do? Is the GPU manager slowing down my graphics performance or is my driver not initialized properly (which I also suspect because of the huge amount of work it took to get it working).

Below is my xorg.conf

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout"
    Screen 0 "intel"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel Graphics"
    Driver "intel"
    BusID "PCI:0@0:2:0"
    Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
    Option "TearFree" "True"
    Option "DRI" "3"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "intel"
    Device "intel"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "nvidia"
    Driver "nvidia"
    BusID "PCI:2@0:0:0"
    Option "ConstrainCursor" "off"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "nvidia"
    Device "nvidia"
    Option "AllowEmptyInitialConfiguration" "on"
    Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "CRT"
EndSection

And here is output of lshw:

   description: 3D controller                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
       product: GM107M [GeForce GTX 960M]                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
       physical id: 0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
       version: a2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
       width: 64 bits                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
       clock: 33MHz                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
       capabilities: bus_master cap_list rom                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
       configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
       resources: irq:17 memory:de000000-deffffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:df000000-df07ffff                                                                                                                             
  *-display                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
       description: VGA compatible controller                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
       product: HD Graphics 530                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
       vendor: Intel Corporation                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
       physical id: 2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
       version: 06                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
       width: 64 bits                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
       clock: 33MHz                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
       capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
       resources: irq:320 memory:dd000000-ddffffff memory:b0000000-bfffffff ioport:f000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23

This is now resolved. Starting from the beginning:

Add nogpumanager to your grub boot options.
Install NVidia driver with intel microcode
Set intel to be your graphics card and reboot
Install latest Intel Graphics driver from: https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/intel-graphics-update-tool-linux-os-v2.0.4 (I am running KUbuntu 16.10 Yakkety)

Then reboot and run this in Konsole:

sudo X :1 -configure

If it errors out no need to worry so did mine but it created a new xorg.conf in my home directory.

then:

sudo cp /home/<username>/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll down to Section "Device" and uncomment the features you want to use and set them to the appropriate value (next to the line is written what kind of values it accepts, ie bool or string).

Here is what I enabled (below is an incomplete xorg.conf only showing the "Device" section. Dont copy paste the whole thing and overwrite the other settings):

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz",
        ### <percent>: "<f>%"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        Option     "Accel" "True"
        Option     "AccelMethod" "sna"
        #Option     "Backlight"                 # <str>
        #Option     "CustomEDID"                # <str>
        #Option     "DRI"                       # <str>
        #Option     "Present"                   # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ColorKey"                  # <i>
        #Option     "VideoKey"                  # <i>
        #Option     "Tiling"                    # [<bool>]
        #Option     "LinearFramebuffer"         # [<bool>]
        #Option     "HWRotation"                # [<bool>]
        Option     "VSync" "True"
        #Option     "PageFlip"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "SwapbuffersWait"           # [<bool>]
        #Option     "TripleBuffer"              # [<bool>]
        #Option     "XvPreferOverlay"           # [<bool>]
        #Option     "HotPlug"                   # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ReprobeOutputs"            # [<bool>]
        #Option     "XvMC"                      # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ZaphodHeads"               # <str>
        #Option     "VirtualHeads"              # <i>
        Option     "TearFree" "True"
        #Option     "PerCrtcPixmaps"            # [<bool>]
        #Option     "FallbackDebug"             # [<bool>]
        #Option     "DebugFlushBatches"         # [<bool>]
        #Option     "DebugFlushCaches"          # [<bool>]
        #Option     "DebugWait"                 # [<bool>]
        #Option     "BufferCache"               # [<bool>]
        Identifier  "Card0"
        Driver      "intel"
        BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz",
        ### <percent>: "<f>%"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "SWcursor"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "kmsdev"                    # <str>
        #Option     "ShadowFB"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "AccelMethod"               # <str>
        #Option     "PageFlip"                  # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ZaphodHeads"               # <str>
        Identifier  "Card1"
        Driver      "modesetting"
        BusID       "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

If you need to check if its working run

sudo intel_gpu_top

and seperately:

glxgears

You should see the render in gpu_top increasing and decreasing as its being used to draw the gears.

Initial xorg configure command from: https://askubuntu.com/a/151490/607467

HD530/GTX960M Only Boots with nogpumanager

1 Answers1