Another optimus laptop and leap 15.1 that do not connect to external hdmi monitor

English Hardware
#1

Hi,
I have an optimus Laptop (Dell Inspiron 3793), I have tried without success so install the nvidia drivers as described here : https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers.
I gave up and decided to continue with the nouveau driver. But, when trying to connect my external monitor, this was not recognized. As this is a no-go for me I’m back trying to configure the nvidia card.
I have read the thread here : https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/538877-optimus-laptop-and-leap-15-1-do-not-connect-to-external-hdmi-monitor/.
I have installed the NVidia drivers the easy way and the prime. After I boot, no graphical interface shows up. Nevertheless prime-select seems to work : prime-select nvidia outputs “Driver configured: nvidia”. But, as I said no graphical interface.

What can I do ?

Thanks !

#2

Hi and welcome to the openSUSE Forums!
Please be aware that the page you followed generally doesn’t work well for “optimus” laptops. If the only thing you look for is using the discrete GPU you might be better off using Bumblebee:
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_Bumblebee

I gave up and decided to continue with the nouveau driver. But, when trying to connect my external monitor, this was not recognized. As this is a no-go for me I’m back trying to configure the nvidia card.

How exactly did you try to use the nouveau driver? In a default Leap install on an “optimus” laptop you should be able to route your video through the discrete GPU by prepending DRI_PRIME=1 to your application, for instance open a terminal and issue:

DRI_PRIME=1 firefox

I have read the thread here : https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/538877-optimus-laptop-and-leap-15-1-do-not-connect-to-external-hdmi-monitor/.

Please be aware that the laptop referred to in that thread has a special configuration and that advice given there might not apply (and likely doesn’t apply ) to your configuration.

I have installed the NVidia drivers the easy way and the prime. After I boot, no graphical interface shows up. Nevertheless prime-select seems to work : prime-select nvidia outputs “Driver configured: nvidia”. But, as I said no graphical interface.

Not clear to me if you followed this page https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_SUSE_Prime or not.
Please be aware that htat page was apparently tested on Tumbleweed and may not work on Leap (personally I gave up testing that stuff long ago).
Also please note that SUSE Prime does not work on wayland, so if you are using a default Gnome install that is not going to work. XFCE with the LightDM display manager might have better chances.

#3

Please be aware that the page you followed generally doesn’t work well for “optimus” laptops. If the only thing you look for is using the discrete GPU you might be better off using Bumblebee:
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_Bumblebee

I have tried also with Bumblebee. But the page mentions that the procedure is tested for

I had problems because the symlinks are wrong, I’ve got stucked there.

How exactly did you try to use the nouveau driver? In a default Leap install on an “optimus” laptop you should be able to route your video through the discrete GPU by prepending DRI_PRIME=1 to your application, for instance open a terminal and issue:

DRI_PRIME=1 firefox

Just plain Leap 15.1 installation set up the nouveau driver for me.

Please be aware that the laptop referred to in that thread has a special configuration and that advice given there might not apply (and likely doesn’t apply ) to your configuration.

Yes, it looks like I’m not that lucky.

Not clear to me if you followed this page https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_SUSE_Prime or not.
Please be aware that htat page was apparently tested on Tumbleweed and may not work on Leap (personally I gave up testing that stuff long ago).
Also please note that SUSE Prime does not work on wayland, so if you are using a default Gnome install that is not going to work. XFCE with the LightDM display manager might have better chances.

I use KDE and there is no wayland.

Yes, I have followed that page even if is for Tumbleweed with the hope that it will bring something. After that point I returned to the initial installation but I was not aware that the external monitor is not recognized.

What I want to achieve is “simply” to connect my external monitor. But currently I only have a black screen. Apparently the HDMI1 port is attached to the Nvidia card, otherwise I cannot explain why the monitor is not recognized.

#4

Here is my Xorg.0.log https://susepaste.org/89513616

#5

lspci -SGx

System:  Host: linux-m2xh Kernel: 4.12.14-lp151.28.36-default x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.4.1  Console:tty 4
Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.1
Graphics: Card-1: Intel Device 8a52  mbus-ID:00:02.0
               Card-2: NVIDIA GP108M [GeForce MX230]  mbus-ID: 01:00.0
               Display Server: X.org 1.20.3  drivers: nvidia (unloaded: modesetting)

lspci | grep -i vga

 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 8a52 (rev 07)
#6

Hi
Just an observation in GNOME if you install switcheroo-control it will add a right-click the icon menu option to the likes of firefox to use the dGPU (DRI_PRIME=1)… this functions on my Dual AMD gpu setup…

#7

Any idea ? I’m completely lost :’(

#8

Apparently you didn’t remove the “nomodeset” option from the boot command line after install:

     7.103] Kernel command line:  BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.12.14-lp151.28.36-default  root=UUID=18fbb20c-050e-43f5-859f-da791e54d954 splash=silent **nomodeset  **resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-CT1000BX500SSD1_1944E226C92A-part3  mitigations=auto quiet

so that the Intel integrated GPU is using only the fallback EFI VGA framebuffer; with that there is no chance for SUSE Prime to work, as shown at:

     7.237] (II) NVIDIA: The X server does not support PRIME Render Offload.

Try to remove the “nomodeset” option and maybe SUSE Prime will start working.

??? Please copy-paste between CODE tags the whole sequence including:
-leading prompt
-command
-result including any errors
-trailing prompt
otherwise we cannot guess what you actually did or what results you actually got.

lspci | grep -i vga

 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 8a52 (rev 07)

Please show instead:

lspci -nnk | egrep 'VGA|3D' -A3

to make sure that your laptop has indeed a “usual Optimus” configuration.

#9

I have removed the nomodeset, here is the new output

https://susepaste.org/32394719

Please show instead:

lspci -nnk | egrep 'VGA|3D' -A3

to make sure that your laptop has indeed a “usual Optimus” configuration.

Here it is:


00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:8a52] (rev 07)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:097a]
    Kernel modules: i915
00:04.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:8a03] (rev 03)
--
01:00.0 3D controller [0302]: NVIDIA Corporation GP108M [GeForce MX230] [10de:1d11] (rev a1)
    Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:097a]
    Kernel driver in use: nvidia
    Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia

Thank you so much for looking into this !

#10

OK, so this is the Optimus config we are used to.
Not clear to me if you now get a graphical login or not and if SUSE Prime is working to an extent. Please try both in “nvidia” and “intel” mode if it makes any difference.
If you get to a graphical login, please show:

xrandr --listproviders

both in “nvidia” and “intel” mode if it makes any difference.

#11

I do not get a graphical login with any of the options “nvidia” or “intel”.

with
“prime-select intel” I get

modprobe:FATAL: Module nvidia_drm is in use
Failed to power off NVIDIA card
Driver configured: intel
#12

Something seems broken in the SUSE Prime configuration, since you still see:

     7.340] (II) NVIDIA: The X server does not support PRIME Render Offload.

But you should get a graphical login in “intel” mode unless something else is broken.
Try booting adding “3” (without quotes) to the boot line, you should land to a text login.
Login, issue “prime-select intel”, then

systemctl isolate default-target

you should land in a graphical login in “intel” mode.

#13

Hi
If the OP is using GNOME and gdm, then uncomment in /etc/gdm/custom.conf (it’s what I did here with intel/nvidia setup);


[daemon]
# Uncomment the line below to force the login screen to use Xorg
WaylandEnable=false
#14

No, the OP is using KDE.

#15 
systemctl isolate default-target

you should land in a graphical login in “intel” mode.[/QUOTE]

Failed to start default-target.target:Operation refused, unit may not be isolated.

after running

systemctl status default-target.target

the following output comes:

Unit default-target.target could not be found.

and here is the loga again :

https://susepaste.org/54060972

#16

My bad, sorry. The correct command is:

systemctl isolate default.target

with a dot, not dash.

#17

the command executed succesfully without an output.

“startx” failed like this

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
xinit failed. /usr/bin/Xorg is not setuid, maybe that's the reason?
If so either use a display manager (strongly recommended) or adjust /etc/permissions.local and run "chkstat --system --set" afterwards

here is the X log

https://susepaste.org/44515798

#18

The “success” should be a graphical login, so did you get it or not?

“startx” failed like this

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
xinit failed. /usr/bin/Xorg is not setuid, maybe that's the reason?
If so either use a display manager (strongly recommended) or adjust /etc/permissions.local and run "chkstat --system --set" afterwards

here is the X log

https://susepaste.org/44515798

So am I right assuming that you didn’t get a graphical login? Why did you need to “startx”?
By the way, startx has been deprecated long ago in Leap, so no wonder that it gives errors.

#19

Just in case that your config was changed from the default, you can also try:

systemctl isolate graphical.target

and since apparently you were successful in switching to “intel” mode, maybe you can simply reboot and get a graphical login now.

#20

Hi,
no, so still no graphical login after reboot also with the intel card. The log is the last attached one.
I’m not sure but these lines do not look good :


Fatal server error:
   514.737] (EE) no screens found(EE) 
   514.737] (EE)

I have noticed that I have no xorg.conf file in /etc/X11