Ubuntu 14.04 doesn't detect my discrete GPU

Question

I recently purchased a laptop with an Nvidia GeForce 860m, and have installed Ubuntu 14.04. On my old laptop I had 12.04, which automatically filled Additional Drivers with Nvidia drivers. But on this computer, the only thing in Additional Drivers is Qualcomm. So I manually installed Nvidia, but X Server Settings doesn't seem to detect any GPU...

lspci | grep VGA reports only my integrated Intel GPU, but

lspci -v reports many things, including the Nvidia GPU:

01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 860M] (rev a2)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 157d
Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 16
Memory at ec000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
I/O ports at e000 [size=128]
Expansion ROM at ed000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
Capabilities: access denied

Don't know what any of that means. Not sure if it's supposed to say 'access denied'...

I need my GPU to do CUDA and OpenGL programming. What else can I do to figure out why this isn't working?

EDIT: per request, the contents of xorg.conf :

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 304.117  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-01)  Tue Nov 26 22:29:40 PST 2013


Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
    VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Solution

It was fixed by installing nVidia driver version 331:

sudo apt-get purge nvidia*
sudo apt-get install nvidia-331-updates-dev

Then installing bumblebee per the instructions here:

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia primus

After a reboot, I was able to use my nVidia gpu for specific programs by using the 'optirun' command. :)

Comments

[JoKeR]

does gksudo nvidia-settings show your GPU? You mean it's not listed in xorg.conf? what is the version of nvidia driver installed in the system? you can see this also from nvidia-settings.

[JoKeR]

add also info from sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf for Section "Device"

[lcdavis13]

gksudo nvidia-settings and nvidia-settings both take me to Nvidia X-Server Settings, which does not recognize that I have a GPU. Most of the tabs that are supposed to be there when you have a GPU are not present. xorg.conf is completely empty.

[JoKeR]

read this askubuntu.com/questions/66328/…

[lcdavis13]

nvidia-xconfig is not recognized as a command. And yes, I installed nvidia-current. I also tried nvidia-current-update. Also nvidia-va-current, among various others that people suggested would fix this problem...

[lcdavis13]

It may be useful to note that the GPU is not recognized when I'm running Ubuntu LIVE either.

[JoKeR]

this cannot be sudo nvidia-xconfig should work, you ran it with sudo right?

[JoKeR]

if you got two video cards GPUs take a look at comments here askubuntu.com/questions/477897/…

[JoKeR]

Yes it does count, to tell you frankly using two GPUs on Ubuntu it's possible but there's always a but in my previous comment link explains why. And if you have Nvidia 860m as you mentioned and you're using 304.117 from xorg.conf what I can see it's not even suitable for your video card! I guess there's not yet available graphic driver for your video card in Ubuntu repos yet and you should consider to manually install a driver for your video card as the driver version for your video card is 331.79

[JoKeR]

please read my manual of what you can do the best askubuntu.com/questions/66328/…

[lcdavis13]

But now my OpenGL version seems to be acting like pre-2.0, even though glxinfo says I have version 3. I will be posting another question about this.

[lcdavis13]

Question posted at askubuntu.com/questions/489434/…

[tikend]

Didn't worked for me. I tried multiple divers and non seems to work.