Video card drivers?

[gabe2]

OK, I got my Ubuntu 12.04 up and running, updates installed, and made a couple of simple tweaks (mouse speed, etc.). Now my next step is to install drivers for my video cards, and I did as instructed by going to the "Additional Drivers" app, only it comes up blank. Does this mean my video cards aren't supported (yet)? I use 2 EVGA 460 GTX in SLI mode. Actually, does Ubuntu recognize SLI? I went to NVIDIA's page and they do have drivers listed (Linux or FreeBSD? And x64 is for the 64-bit systems, correct? That's what I have). I read in a lot of places, however, that I should very much avoid using NVIDIA's download. What do I do here?

Thanks!

[papibe]

Hi gabe2.

Could you post the result of this command?

lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 vga
Regards.

[gabe2]

I feel a little dumb asking this, but where do I input that command?

[papibe]

Open a terminal, and paste the command above, then paste its output on another post :)

Regards.

[gabe2]

All right, gotta switch over to Ubuntu...back in 10

[gabe2]

OK, here's what it showed:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GF104 [GeForce GTX 460] [10de:0e22] (rev a1)
Subsystem: eVga.com. Corp. Device [3842:1362]
Kernel driver in use: nvidia
Kernel modules: nvidia_current_updates, nouveau, nvidiafb
--
Subsystem: eVga.com. Corp. Device [3842:1362]
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GF104 [GeForce GTX 460] [10de:0e22] (rev a1)
Subsystem: eVga.com. Corp. Device [3842:1362]
Kernel driver in use: nvidia
Kernel modules: nvidia_current_updates, nouveau, nvidiafb
--
Subsystem: eVga.com. Corp. Device [3842:1362]
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

[papibe]

Thanks.
Somehow your are actually using the Nvidia proprietary driver.

Just make sure to enable sli by running either:

sudo nvidia-xconfig --sli=AFR
or

sudo nvidia-xconfig --sli=SFR
depending on the rendering mode you prefer.

Then restart your computer.

Hope it helps. Let us know how it goes.
Regards.

[gabe2]

What's the difference between the two modes? Also, if I have NVIDIA drivers installed, why can't I select the correct resolution for my monitor? It should be 1920 x 1200 and I only have 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600 to choose from.

[papibe]

Are you using 'Nvidia X Server Settings' to set the resolution?

(that replaces the functionality of 'Displays' when using the Nvidia driver).

Let us know how it goes.
Regards.

[gabe2]

Didn't know that was there, but while there are additional resolutions available, it still only appears to max out at 1024x768, I do not see 1920x1200 anywhere, unfortunately. I guess I need to go into the X Config file and manually enter it there?

[gabe2]

I'm still having no luck whatsoever trying to change the resolution. I've been looking at all kinds of different fixes and none of them appear to work (or maybe I'm not doing it right, I don't know). Also, I can't seem to adjust the brightness of the screen because my slider is gone for some reason. Is there a fix for that as well?

Please help, I'm quite eager to learn about this OS and the potential troubleshooting I gotta do. This is sort of research for building my grandmother a simple and user-friendly computer that isn't tempermental. The resolution and slider are really the two big remaining items that I need to fix here, I'm so CLOSE!

For the record, here's what xrandr says:
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1024 x 768, maximum 16384 x 16384
DVI-I-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-2 connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 520mm x 330mm
1024x768 75.0*+ 70.1 60.0
800x600 75.0 72.2 60.3
640x480 75.0 72.8 59.9
640x350 70.1
HDMI-0 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1024x768 75.0 + 70.1 60.0
800x600 75.0 72.2 60.3
720x480 59.9
640x480 75.0 72.8 59.9
DVI-I-3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

[papibe]

What kind of cable are you using to connect the monitor? Is a VGA, DVI or HDMI?

Also, could you paste the content of this file:

/var/log/Xorg.0.log
Please paste it here: paste.ubuntu.com (http://paste.ubuntu.com/), and then post back the link to it.

Regards.

[gabe2]

DVI

I tried entering that line code in the terminal, it told me that permission is denied?

[gabe2]

Whoa! I just noticed something interesting. On a lark, I switched over to the Guest Session and the resolution there is CORRECT!

*EDIT* I copied & pasted the contents of the xorg.conf file from the Guest Session (after saving using NVIDIA X Server) to my account, that appears to have fixed the problem, now I have the correct resolution.