Cannot use the NVIDIA video card on my ThinkPad T420 in 12.04

[czeng7]

Hi,Meschi,
Thank you for the help,

I have rebooted the system after removing the old xorg.config
and I don't know how to set the BIOS, also I am reluctant to change it because I have just installed a WIN7 on my wife's MAC and destroyed everything. I don't want to have trouble at that level again.

I still have the problem about the resolution but I don't want to tweak it anymore, I re-set the resolution very time I restart my laptop, It is annoying but still acceptable.
Thank you,

regards,
czeng,

Hi Czeng,

Sry for my late answer, had to do some things last time. Maybe your problem is still up to date. Some questions occur to me due to your post/s above:

• Did you reboot system after removing the old xorg.config file. looks to me like it is still in use because it wants to use the "v4l" module which is loaded in your old xorg.config file (by the way: where do u have this from? generated by nvidia-settings?)
• The output of

   glxspheres

  and

   optirun -vv glxspheres

  could be of interest. First one will show your frames/sec without using the nvidia-card, second one with using the nvidia-card. This should show wether the card works like intended or if any errors are thrown

• I do not know your hardware exactly but from the posts above i assume that you have bios options to completely disable the nvidia-card or the intel-processor intern card. If this is the case and the bios is configured not to use both cards then "bumblebee" is the wrong choice for you because it is made to change between both. (Then for example activate only nvidia-card, turn off intel-chip, deinstall bumblebee and use the nvidia-driver on its own)

Greetings, Meschi

[czeng7]

I think I have some more interesting things happened about the screen resolution.

Right now I have given up about the video card drive and plan to use the integrated one. I also have uninstalled all the nvidia related packages.

And I seems found the key of the question about the incorrect resolution when restart the laptop:

~/.config/monitors.xml

I accidentally read one post which talks about how to use two screens; then I notice I have ever used once on my laptop with an extend screen. And my laptop has the same symptoms with the post: after input the password at the login interface (1600x900), the screen blink once (turn dark and then turn back again as 1024 x 768 ).

thus, I change the monitors.xml by :

 gedit ~/.config/monitors.xml

and change the file as:

<monitors version="1">

<configuration>

<clone>no</clone>

<output name="LVDS1">
<vendor>LGD</vendor>
<product>0x02e2</product>
<serial>0x00000000</serial>
<width>1600</width>
<height>900</height>
<rate>60</rate>
<x>0</x>
<y>0</y>
<rotation>normal</rotation>
<reflect_x>no</reflect_x>
<reflect_y>no</reflect_y>
<primary>yes</primary>
</output>

<output name="VGA1">
<vendor>...</vendor>
<product>...</product>
<serial>...</serial>
<width>1520</width>
<height>780</height>
<rate>0</rate>
<x>1600</x>
<y>0</y>
<rotation>normal</rotation>
<reflect_x>no</reflect_x>
<reflect_y>no</reflect_y>
<primary>no</primary>
</output>

<output name="LVDS1">
</output>

</configuration>

</monitors>

It works for me !! After the login screen , although it will blink as usual, but it will show up with the 1600*900 screen.

However, after work for about one week, it changed today again, with the reason unknown and no change to the screen settings.

then, I edit the file by remove the Section:

<output name="VGA1">
...
</output>

because I think I only use one screen here(the LED : LVDS1).

However, after this editing, I restart the laptop, and it does not solve the problem. I check the screen setting with

xrandr

I receive the following feedback:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 768, maximum 32767 x 32767
LVDS2 connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 310mm x 174mm
1600x900 60.0 +
1440x900 59.9
1360x768 59.8 60.0
1152x864 60.0
1024x768 60.0*
800x600 60.3 56.2
640x480 59.9
VGA2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

The most funny one is the LVDS1 --> LVDS2!!!
What happened behind? and how to solve this problem?