Dell Laptop - Unable to Correctly Install NVIDIA Drivers

**zenben1126** · September 3rd, 2011

Hello,

So I recently got a Dell Inspiron N5110. As far as I can understand, it has 2 graphics chips: an Intel and an NVIDIA. Naturally, it runs on the Intel and Ubuntu doesn't let you switch between the two graphics cards. My problem: I want to play games as well as general use.

So I installed a program called Bumblebee, which I'm sure some have heard of. It allows you to switch between the two graphics cards based on optimization. After huge effort in installing it correctly, I typed the command "optirun." It switched to my NVIDIA card no problem. After a little bit of gaming I wanted to switch back and typed "optirun" in the terminal once more. It gave me the following error:

Code:

 * Stopping Bumblebee X server bumblebee                                 [fail] 
ERROR: Module nvidia does not exist in /proc/modules
NVOP Disabling nVidia Card failed (Error: AE_NOT_FOUND).
_PS3 Disabling nVidia Card failed (Error: AE_NOT_FOUND).

I assumed that I must not have the driver installed for NVIDIA. So I went online and downloaded the NVIDIA 280.13 bash file, killed the X server and ran it as root. It told me that my graphics card is not supported or the GPU is not compatible? Something like that. I said "Install Anyway" to try it out. It gave me some script errors, and then told me that I don't have the proper kernels?

It's a big mess and I have no idea where to begin! I'm running the latest Ubuntu distribution. Can anyone please help?