[SOLVED] Can't use nvidia gpu with Dell XPS 15 9500

Breigner01 · 2023-03-28 23:07:13

Hi,

So I have followed the guide on the archwiki on how to set everything up with bumblebee to be able to use the dedicated nvidia GPU on a laptop for the programs that need it.
Except that I never was able to use it and when trying to launch opencl demos, it never detected my nvidia GPU.

Here is the output of lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 10th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6th-10th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation CometLake-H GT2 [UHD Graphics] (rev 05)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 02)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th/8th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Thermal Controller
00:13.0 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Device 06fc
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake USB 3.1 xHCI Host Controller
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Shared SRAM
00:15.0 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #0
00:15.1 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #1
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake HECI Controller
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 06b8 (rev f0)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCIe Port #6 (rev f0)
00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Device 06be (rev f0)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCI Express Root Port #9 (rev f0)
00:1e.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Serial IO UART Host Controller #0
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device 068e
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH cAVS
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH SMBus Controller
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH SPI Controller
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile] (rev a1)
02:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
03:00.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
03:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
03:02.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
03:04.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
04:00.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 NHI [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
38:00.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 USB Controller [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] (rev 06)
6c:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Technologies, Inc QCA6390 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
6e:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: SK hynix Gold P31/PC711 NVMe Solid State Drive

Here is my bumblebee config /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf

# Configuration file for Bumblebee. Values should **not** be put between quotes

## Server options. Any change made in this section will need a server restart
# to take effect.
[bumblebeed]
# The secondary Xorg server DISPLAY number
VirtualDisplay=:8
# Should the unused Xorg server be kept running? Set this to true if waiting
# for X to be ready is too long and don't need power management at all.
KeepUnusedXServer=false
# The name of the Bumbleblee server group name (GID name)
ServerGroup=bumblebee
# Card power state at exit. Set to false if the card shoud be ON when Bumblebee
# server exits.
TurnCardOffAtExit=false
# The default behavior of '-f' option on optirun. If set to "true", '-f' will
# be ignored.
NoEcoModeOverride=false
# The Driver used by Bumblebee server. If this value is not set (or empty),
# auto-detection is performed. The available drivers are nvidia and nouveau
# (See also the driver-specific sections below)
Driver=
# Directory with a dummy config file to pass as a -configdir to secondary X
XorgConfDir=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.d

## Client options. Will take effect on the next optirun executed.
[optirun]
# Acceleration/ rendering bridge, possible values are auto, virtualgl and
# primus.
Bridge=auto
# The method used for VirtualGL to transport frames between X servers.
# Possible values are proxy, jpeg, rgb, xv and yuv.
VGLTransport=proxy
# List of paths which are searched for the primus libGL.so.1 when using
# the primus bridge
PrimusLibraryPath=/usr/lib/primus:/usr/lib32/primus
# Should the program run under optirun even if Bumblebee server or nvidia card
# is not available?
AllowFallbackToIGC=false


# Driver-specific settings are grouped under [driver-NAME]. The sections are
# parsed if the Driver setting in [bumblebeed] is set to NAME (or if auto-
# detection resolves to NAME).
# PMMethod: method to use for saving power by disabling the nvidia card, valid
# values are: auto - automatically detect which PM method to use
#         bbswitch - new in BB 3, recommended if available
#       switcheroo - vga_switcheroo method, use at your own risk
#             none - disable PM completely
# https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/Comparison-of-PM-methods

## Section with nvidia driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nvidia
[driver-nvidia]
# Module name to load, defaults to Driver if empty or unset
KernelDriver=nvidia
PMMethod=auto
# colon-separated path to the nvidia libraries
LibraryPath=/usr/lib/nvidia:/usr/lib32/nvidia:/usr/lib:/usr/lib32
# comma-separated path of the directory containing nvidia_drv.so and the
# default Xorg modules path
XorgModulePath=/usr/lib/nvidia/xorg,/usr/lib/xorg/modules
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia

## Section with nouveau driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nouveau
[driver-nouveau]
KernelDriver=nouveau
PMMethod=auto
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nouveau

Also I was having troubles booting to the standard kernel and found out that bumblebee was somehow preventing sddm to start so I had no desktop manager and it was also preventing me from switching to another tty.

So I may have misconfigured it.

I would really like to be able to use my GPU on linux and not have to resort to using windows for that and I don't know what to try anymore.

Last edited by Breigner01 (2023-05-03 19:02:27)

V1del · 2023-03-28 23:35:34

Your GPU and CPU configuration is new enough that you do not need to worry about these old methods of enabling the GPU. Remove bumblebee and follow https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PRIME# … er_offload instead. You'll also might want to make sure the nvidia card can actually load and add ibt=off to your kernel parameters if the module for the nvidia card can't be loaded (you'd see an ENDBR message in dmesg for example, though afaik this should only affect 11th gen+ intel cpus, but might want to be on the safe side)

Last edited by V1del (2023-03-28 23:37:24)

Breigner01 · 2023-05-03 19:01:45

It's been a while since I last came here.
Thank you for this, first time I tried it wasn't working but maybe I did things too fast and forgot something but after a couple tests, it works fine now.
I'll mark this as resolved.
I still have a quick question, do you know how I could configure fullscreen games to not stretch when rendered in another aspect ratio than the screen's aspect ratio?

seth · 2023-05-03 19:29:49

https://unix.stackexchange.com/question … -intel-gpu
But if the game sets the randr/vid-mode w/o your control, you're lost.
External monitors typically allow you to control how to handle resolutions other than the native one (in the montitors firmware), but not laptop panels - a far as I've ever seen.

Arch Linux

#1 2023-03-28 23:07:13

[SOLVED] Can't use nvidia gpu with Dell XPS 15 9500

#2 2023-03-28 23:35:34

Re: [SOLVED] Can't use nvidia gpu with Dell XPS 15 9500

#3 2023-05-03 19:01:45

Re: [SOLVED] Can't use nvidia gpu with Dell XPS 15 9500

#4 2023-05-03 19:29:49

Re: [SOLVED] Can't use nvidia gpu with Dell XPS 15 9500

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