Nvidia and optimus chipset

[Robert Donovan]

Hey folks. A friend of mine has a Lenovo Y700 Laptop(the poor devil) that
has an old nVidia 960M card. He wants to use it for 3D modeling in Blender,
so GPU rendering is highly sought after here.

Unfortunately, I have discovered that this machine uses the Optimus
chipset, meaning that the Intel and nVidia card are all on one chip. It
seems the native nVidia driver will not work with this. I tried the bumble
bee site, but that has not been maintained for some time. All the
procedures at the bumblebee site and elsewhere have generated unknown
device errors and then the machine just stops and either reboots, or hangs
with a blank screen and no keyboard control even in single user mode.
The nouveau driver works fine using the Intel card, so I can get the
machine to work, but Blender will only do CPU rendering unless I can get
the nVidia card to run. If anybody has, or can point me to, a way to get
the nVidia driver to work with the Optimus chipset, you have my thanks in
advance for any suggestions.

[Rich Ernst]

Did you find this helpful link?

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Gaming-Laptops/Y700-nvidia-drivers/td-p/3577742

Rich

==================================================

Re: Y700 nvidia drivers

‎02-20-2017 02:37 AM

Download the latest nvidia drivers on your desktop

Download the following tool

http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html



Choose your nvidia graphics card and hit uninstall. This will
completely uninstall your nvidia drivers. Restart.

Be careful *not* to uninstall the intel drivers or you may end with a
black screen

After the restart install your nvidia drivers and once again do a restart

========================================================

Rich

Post by Robert Donovan
Hey folks. A friend of mine has a Lenovo Y700 Laptop(the poor devil) that
has an old nVidia 960M card. He wants to use it for 3D modeling in Blender,
so GPU rendering is highly sought after here.
Unfortunately, I have discovered that this machine uses the Optimus
chipset, meaning that the Intel and nVidia card are all on one chip. It
seems the native nVidia driver will not work with this. I tried the bumble
bee site, but that has not been maintained for some time. All the
procedures at the bumblebee site and elsewhere have generated unknown
device errors and then the machine just stops and either reboots, or hangs
with a blank screen and no keyboard control even in single user mode.
The nouveau driver works fine using the Intel card, so I can get the
machine to work, but Blender will only do CPU rendering unless I can get
the nVidia card to run. If anybody has, or can point me to, a way to get
the nVidia driver to work with the Optimus chipset, you have my thanks in
advance for any suggestions.
--
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list

[Joel Rodriguez]

Have a 760M on Slackware64 14.2
the bumblebee package required that nouveau driver be blacklisted

--------
***@movil-joel:/etc/modprobe.d# more BLACKLIST-nouveau.conf
# Do not load the kernel nouveau dri module, since it interferes with both
# the nv and binary nvidia drivers.

blacklist nouveau

***@movil-joel:/etc/modprobe.d#
--------

then everything worked fine.


Note: I use the nvidia proprietary driver.

----------
***@movil-joel:/etc/modprobe.d# nvidia-smi
Tue Jun 26 20:09:15 2018
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 375.39 Driver Version:
375.39 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

...................
***@movil-joel:/etc/modprobe.d#
----------

to run some cuda demos do as follows

optirun name_of_executable

regards,
Joel

Post by Robert Donovan
Hey folks. A friend of mine has a Lenovo Y700 Laptop(the poor devil) that
has an old nVidia 960M card. He wants to use it for 3D modeling in Blender,
so GPU rendering is highly sought after here.
Unfortunately, I have discovered that this machine uses the Optimus
chipset, meaning that the Intel and nVidia card are all on one chip. It
seems the native nVidia driver will not work with this. I tried the bumble
bee site, but that has not been maintained for some time. All the
procedures at the bumblebee site and elsewhere have generated unknown
device errors and then the machine just stops and either reboots, or hangs
with a blank screen and no keyboard control even in single user mode.
The nouveau driver works fine using the Intel card, so I can get the
machine to work, but Blender will only do CPU rendering unless I can get
the nVidia card to run. If anybody has, or can point me to, a way to get
the nVidia driver to work with the Optimus chipset, you have my thanks in
advance for any suggestions.

[Tony Su]

When you have an Optimus laptop,
Your install options are radically different than on ordinary machines.

Here are two references, the Arch Wiki article which generally applies
to any distro, and our openSUSE reference
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/bumblebee
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_Bumblebee

Bottom line is that installing on an Optimus laptop and using the
nVidia GPU can be imposing the first time, but nowadays it's not as
imposing as it was a couple years ago.

HTH,
Tony

Post by Joel Rodriguez
Have a 760M on Slackware64 14.2
the bumblebee package required that nouveau driver be blacklisted
--------
# Do not load the kernel nouveau dri module, since it interferes with both
# the nv and binary nvidia drivers.
blacklist nouveau
--------
then everything worked fine.
Note: I use the nvidia proprietary driver.
----------
Tue Jun 26 20:09:15 2018
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 375.39 Driver Version: 375.39
|
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
...................
----------
to run some cuda demos do as follows
optirun name_of_executable
regards,
Joel

Post by Robert Donovan
Hey folks. A friend of mine has a Lenovo Y700 Laptop(the poor devil) that
has an old nVidia 960M card. He wants to use it for 3D modeling in Blender,
so GPU rendering is highly sought after here.
Unfortunately, I have discovered that this machine uses the Optimus
chipset, meaning that the Intel and nVidia card are all on one chip. It
seems the native nVidia driver will not work with this. I tried the bumble
bee site, but that has not been maintained for some time. All the
procedures at the bumblebee site and elsewhere have generated unknown
device errors and then the machine just stops and either reboots, or hangs
with a blank screen and no keyboard control even in single user mode.
The nouveau driver works fine using the Intel card, so I can get the
machine to work, but Blender will only do CPU rendering unless I can get
the nVidia card to run. If anybody has, or can point me to, a way to get
the nVidia driver to work with the Optimus chipset, you have my thanks in
advance for any suggestions.

--
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list

[Robert Donovan]

Thanks for all the suggestions for getting the Nvidia card to work. I had
found Rich's link before, but, though I got the Nvidia drivers uninstalled,
which seems way more involved than it needs to be, I still haven't been
able to get them to work. The owner of the laptop was pleased that Linux
was working at all, and has it now, running nouveau for the time being. He
will bring it back next week, and we'll try some of these ideas then.

Post by Tony Su
When you have an Optimus laptop,
Your install options are radically different than on ordinary machines.
Here are two references, the Arch Wiki article which generally applies
to any distro, and our openSUSE reference
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/bumblebee
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_Bumblebee
Bottom line is that installing on an Optimus laptop and using the
nVidia GPU can be imposing the first time, but nowadays it's not as
imposing as it was a couple years ago.
HTH,
Tony

Post by Joel Rodriguez
Have a 760M on Slackware64 14.2
the bumblebee package required that nouveau driver be blacklisted
--------
# Do not load the kernel nouveau dri module, since it interferes with

both

Post by Joel Rodriguez
# the nv and binary nvidia drivers.
blacklist nouveau
--------
then everything worked fine.
Note: I use the nvidia proprietary driver.
----------
Tue Jun 26 20:09:15 2018
+-----------------------------------------------------------

------------------+

Post by Joel Rodriguez
| NVIDIA-SMI 375.39 Driver Version: 375.39
|
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----

------------------+

Post by Joel Rodriguez
...................
----------
to run some cuda demos do as follows
optirun name_of_executable
regards,
Joel

Post by Robert Donovan
Hey folks. A friend of mine has a Lenovo Y700 Laptop(the poor devil)

that

Post by Joel Rodriguez

Post by Robert Donovan
has an old nVidia 960M card. He wants to use it for 3D modeling in Blender,
so GPU rendering is highly sought after here.
Unfortunately, I have discovered that this machine uses the Optimus
chipset, meaning that the Intel and nVidia card are all on one chip. It
seems the native nVidia driver will not work with this. I tried the

bumble

Post by Joel Rodriguez

Post by Robert Donovan
bee site, but that has not been maintained for some time. All the
procedures at the bumblebee site and elsewhere have generated unknown
device errors and then the machine just stops and either reboots, or

hangs

Post by Joel Rodriguez

Post by Robert Donovan
with a blank screen and no keyboard control even in single user mode.
The nouveau driver works fine using the Intel card, so I can get the
machine to work, but Blender will only do CPU rendering unless I can get
the nVidia card to run. If anybody has, or can point me to, a way to get
the nVidia driver to work with the Optimus chipset, you have my thanks

in

Post by Joel Rodriguez

Post by Robert Donovan
advance for any suggestions.

--
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list

--
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list

[Tony Su]

Other thing to consider is that IMO enabling the nVidia mainly
benefits from the processing on a separate GPU.
Take a look at the specs for both the integrated Intel and compare to
the nVidia...
In the past for several models, I was struck that the nVidia won't
perform any better than the Intel.

Tony

Post by Robert Donovan
Thanks for all the suggestions for getting the Nvidia card to work. I had
found Rich's link before, but, though I got the Nvidia drivers uninstalled,
which seems way more involved than it needs to be, I still haven't been
able to get them to work. The owner of the laptop was pleased that Linux
was working at all, and has it now, running nouveau for the time being. He
will bring it back next week, and we'll try some of these ideas then.

Post by Tony Su
When you have an Optimus laptop,
Your install options are radically different than on ordinary machines.
Here are two references, the Arch Wiki article which generally applies
to any distro, and our openSUSE reference
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/bumblebee
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_Bumblebee
Bottom line is that installing on an Optimus laptop and using the
nVidia GPU can be imposing the first time, but nowadays it's not as
imposing as it was a couple years ago.
HTH,
Tony

Post by Joel Rodriguez
Have a 760M on Slackware64 14.2
the bumblebee package required that nouveau driver be blacklisted
--------
# Do not load the kernel nouveau dri module, since it interferes with

both

Post by Joel Rodriguez
# the nv and binary nvidia drivers.
blacklist nouveau
--------
then everything worked fine.
Note: I use the nvidia proprietary driver.
----------
Tue Jun 26 20:09:15 2018
+-----------------------------------------------------------

------------------+

Post by Joel Rodriguez
| NVIDIA-SMI 375.39 Driver Version: 375.39
|
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----

------------------+

Post by Joel Rodriguez
...................
----------
to run some cuda demos do as follows
optirun name_of_executable
regards,
Joel

Post by Robert Donovan
Hey folks. A friend of mine has a Lenovo Y700 Laptop(the poor devil)

that

Post by Joel Rodriguez

Post by Robert Donovan
has an old nVidia 960M card. He wants to use it for 3D modeling in Blender,
so GPU rendering is highly sought after here.
Unfortunately, I have discovered that this machine uses the Optimus
chipset, meaning that the Intel and nVidia card are all on one chip. It
seems the native nVidia driver will not work with this. I tried the

bumble

Post by Joel Rodriguez

Post by Robert Donovan
bee site, but that has not been maintained for some time. All the
procedures at the bumblebee site and elsewhere have generated unknown
device errors and then the machine just stops and either reboots, or

hangs

Post by Joel Rodriguez

Post by Robert Donovan
with a blank screen and no keyboard control even in single user mode.
The nouveau driver works fine using the Intel card, so I can get the
machine to work, but Blender will only do CPU rendering unless I can get
the nVidia card to run. If anybody has, or can point me to, a way to get
the nVidia driver to work with the Optimus chipset, you have my thanks

in

Post by Joel Rodriguez

Post by Robert Donovan
advance for any suggestions.

--
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list

--
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list

--
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list