Ubuntu doesn't detect my ATI VGA card, only Intel, using 'lspci | grep VGA' & 'sudo lshw -C video'

Question

I'm sporting a Lenovo G570 Laptop with a dedicated ATi Radeon (6347) HD 1GB VGA card

For the last 5 days I've been trying to install ATI Proprietary drivers to make full use of it: I tried almost every way there is & continuing with this method

However, when installing the packages & typing sudo aticonfig --initial -f; I get the error that no supported devices detected.

Using lspci | grep VGA & sudo lshw -C video to determine what VGA cards are detected, it only shows that the system detects only the integrated Intel graphics card, not the ATi HD dedicated card.

Help please?

EDIT SOLVED

sorry to bother y'all, I turned it off by mistake from BIOS; i didn't know coz my bios had only 2 options: Switchable Graphics or UMA Adapter (integrated Intel)

thanks for the help :)

Solution

Well, according to Lenovo's website page there are no G570 model with an ATI card, I would say that is fine, as long as you don't think there is an ATI one inside when you buy it.

This is also true in the tech specs documentation, there is no G570 with an integrated ATI card.

Some laptops have an option on the BIOS to set which graphics card is in use (both, intel or only ATI), check if that is the case with you. If the card is present on the system and working (not broken) it should be detected by the OS, no matter what driver is installed, a driver cannot break that.

Comments

[Marky]

Buddy, you won't be able to use the ATI graphics chipset on Ubuntu or any other Linux distro unless, as mentioned below, you can explicitly select in the BIOS which graphics card to use: either 1 or both. This is one area where Linux is at a loss. Don't expect a solution soon. Sure there is Bumblebee the kerenel vgaswitcheroo support, etc., but all these are experimental. Stop wasting your time installing the ATI proprietary drivers because it will NEVER WORK. Trust me I have tried. Only Intel will work and you have to be content with that. Anyway, I switch to Windows 7 when playing games.

[dstructor]

Or when viewing videos in that case since it flickers & splits So help me understand this clearer: You're saying that if the BIOS has only has the option between Integrated Intel or both VGA cards, Linux won't be able to support it? Unless i can exclusively select the ATi card, it won't work with Linux?

[Marky]

No. What I meant was, you won't be able to run from the proprietary ATI drivers unless you can turn off Intel graphics from the BIOS. That is what everybody else is saying if you've read around forums and blogs before coming here. On the other hand, you can turn off the open source ATI drivers and have Linux use Intel instead. That will work, like what I am doing now with my Intel + ATI laptop. Sadly my BIOS doesn't support turning on/off either graphics explicitly. Guess I have to live with Intel graphics while on Ubuntu. BTW, watching videos on Ubuntu w/ Intel graphics is fine in my case.

[dstructor]

I know that almost none of the specs i opened mentioned a G570 with an ATi Card; it's model 20079 to be specific. However, it has the Radeon Graphics badge & i found drivers for ATi Graphics card on the Lenovo Customer support for the G570 here besides the fact that the additional drivers app used to detect it -- just to make sure, i'll be installing Windows & see if it detects it

[dstructor]

Can i also add that it stopped detecting it after a radical purge/uninstall of the ATi (fglrx) drivers? Thought it might help

[Bruno Pereira]

Soma laptops have an option on the BIOS to set which graphics card is in use (both, intel or only ATI), can you check if that is an option from you? If the card is present on the system and working (not broken) it should be detected by the OS, no matter what driver is installed, a driver cannot break that.

[dstructor]

Checked my bios, doesn't have them :( was one of the reasons i was searching for a Win7 to install; so i can update the bios, see if it has the option