Just Installing Ubuntu 14.04 on a Dell Latitude E6510 about 3 years old. I need to change Video driver to NVIDIA

Result of lshw showed subject as video display.

*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: GT218M [NVS 3100M]
vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: a2
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
resources: irq:44 memory:e2000000-e2ffffff

I tried using "Additional Drivers"
which shows a bunch of drivers. I picked the first one 331.113 and it doesn't work{I don't think anyway} If I go to System Settings => Screen Display It shows Built-In Display. No way to get to NVIDIA.

Below in the window it says "Proprietary Driver in Use" (Implying NVIDIA driver 331.113 is in use??). I can't get to NVIDIA'S Window which lets you change resolutions and such.

Nowhere do I find any driver for whatever a GT218M [NVS 3100M] is.

Please help.

R

Hi...

You should be able to find out which driver you're using by typing into a terminal one or more of the following commands...

Please post what comes up.

If they come back saying the Nvidia driver is loaded, you should also have the "Nvidia X Server Settings" package installed under something like "System Tools."

Regards...

Thanks for the reply, Here is the results of commands. Seems I don't know any more than I did before.


lspci -nnk =>

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GT218M [NVS 3100M] [10de:0a6c] (rev a2)
Subsystem: Dell Latitude E6510 [1028:040b]
Kernel driver in use: nvidia

glxinfo | grep -i vendor =>

server glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
client glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation

lsmod =>

Only thing mentioning NVIDIA is: drm 303102 2 nvidia

You have the correct driver installed and are using it already. The program you search for is called nvidia-settings, just run that and you should see the driver's settings manager.

I installed nvidia-settings see attachment for results.

Can't find anywhere that offers a key. Only problems like I'm having, no solutions as to where to get this key.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Hi...

Thank you for posting the results.

From what I see here, it appears that installing the "nvidia-prime" package is part of the solution...

Let us know how this works. If you already have it installed, take a look at the other suggestions.

Regards...

Hi,

I had this installed already.

I purged nvidia-settings and re-installed. Same result!!

I find this really frustrating as I had 14.04 installed before w/nvidia driver and it worked ok. I am only re-installing because of suspected computer attack.

Are all of the drivers listed under "Additional Drivers" supposed to work?

R

I used Dashboard to load nvidia legacy 304.125.

I then re-booted. During load saw NVIDIA Screen flash by.

When I invoked nvidia-settings. I got info on the attached file. Different error but nothing to do with "key".

"Screen Display" still shows "Built-in Display".

"AHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!!!"

R

Attached Thumbnails

 

Hi...

Apart from the error message, what is the nature of the problem? Are you not able to adjust the resolution or is there something else?

Regards...

And unless you have attached an external monitor it always will show that. It will tell you which monitor is used, not which videocard is currently displaying stuff.

SOLVED (I think)

I now can set the resolution, which is all I set out to do in the first place. Don't know about setting all the other stuff though.

Thanks much, people, for your time and effort on my behalf in solving this.

R

You're welcome, glad you got it working.

For the benefit of others how did you solve it exactly?

Regards...

HI Ardvark71,

Just on a whim I changed to the "Legacy" driver 304.125. ie: Blundered into something that worked.

The developers of the Nvidia drivers and Ubuntu certainly could do a much better job of documentation re: graphics drivers if they assumed that everyone was NOT a pro, and therefore know little about this subject.

Again Thanks.

R

Cool! Thank you for letting us know.

Also, would you mark this thread as "SOLVED" by clicking on "Thread Tools" right above your initial post. Thanks!

Regards...

I've noticed with upgrades in xorg to version 1.15 I've lost support for nv cards supported by the driver 304,
with the same nv304 machine will work with xorg 1.12 found in antiX/Mepis MX-14[14.3], but note antiX 15 is using xorg 1.15.
Just wish xorg would acknowledge these fatal bugs