Ubuntu – Lenovo Y510P and SLI GT750M not working

13.04driversgraphicsintel graphicsnvidia

I recently bought a Lenovo Y510P which comes with a SLI of NVIDIA GT750M.

I managed to install Ubuntu 13.04 on my UEFI system by simply downloading the correct .iso, disabling secure boot and removing my second graphics card from the ultrabay. So, Ubuntu has installed itself with nouveau drivers, since it's using the integrated Intel HD4600, which can't be disabled or enabled by the BIOS. Since here, everything's fine, I can boot into lightdm and work.

Now I want to use my full SLI configuration, or at least I don't want to physically remove my second graphics card from the laptop, so I installed the nvidia-current package from the repository.

Now the system freezes after this kernel message

* Starting LightDM Display Manager [OK]

And I can't even switch to tty1 to 12.

I tried removing quiet splash from the boot entry, adding nomodeset=1 but nothing changed.

Is there any way to get it to work?

Best Answer

I tried all day on my y510p to get this working but for now I've determined we cannot boot the system with both video cards plugged in.

Note! The Lenovo y510p with Nvidia SLI has Intel Graphics AND Nvidia Graphics! You have to setup the intel video driver first, then move on to Nvidia.

Brightness Problem

If you get a black screen at login, try pressing Fn + Brightness+ (Up arrow) on your keyboard and you should be able to see the login box.

Enable Intel Video Driver

  1. Remove or backup your xorg.conf file if you have one 
    sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
  2. Remove all nvidia stuff if you have anything: 
    sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia*
  3. Install the intel video driver (might already be installed): 
    sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel
  4. Create a new file under the xorg.conf.d directory: 
    sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
  5. Copy/Paste this into the file: 
    Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel"
    Driver "intel"
EndSection
  6. Save it and exit
  7. Reboot the system and you should now have decent intel graphic acceleration working with no errors. 
    sudo reboot now
    or press the power button

Enable Nvidia Driver

To get the Nividia card working (for certain games & apps), you'll need nvidia drivers from the xorg edgers repo and Bumblebee. This method allows you to run a specific application with the nvidia driver active.

  1. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
  2. sudo apt-get update
  3. sudo apt-get install nvidia-331 nvidia-331-settings bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia
  4. Update the /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf file like in this answer:
    Using Nvidia 319 with bumblebee
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