No option to install proprietary driver on optimus laptop

Support Graphics & Display
1

Hello,
I’ve had this issue on my Manjaro/KDE installation with no option to install proprietary drivers (as shown in the screenshot).

Screenshot_20210424_160923
Screenshot_20210424_160923874×756 73.4 KB

I’ve had many Manjaro/KDE installations on this laptop and I’ve always been able to install and use proprietary nvidia drivers. And I’m sure it was the same for this installation, but at some point (after some update?) I lost this option in the driver manager. All the nvidia drivers seem to be installed, but judging by performance after switching to “nvidia” via optimus-manager, it seems to me the system is using the nouveau driver to render the screen. When I booted from a live CD, everything was OK, I had the two options, but here it only sees the open source drivers. I’ve changed kernels and re-installed all the drivers in pamac with no result.

2

Hi @pawelx,

The older proprietary nvidia drivers were removed. So if your GPU isn’t supported by the new drivers, I suspect this happens.

Please see:

If you wish to continue using the older, legacy driver, please see

Hope this helps!

3

This help?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZdWVntmvI8

4

You said you are using optimus manager? If you have disabled nvidia card with optimus manager then maybe mhwd can’t see the nvidia card so doesn’t list the drivers? Just a guess

5

You may be missing key packages, what is output of pacman -Qs nvidia? Do you see

local/mhwd-nvidia 465.24.02-2
    MHWD module-ids for nvidia 465.24.02
local/mhwd-nvidia-390xx 390.143-1
    MHWD module-ids for nvidia 390.143
6

It’s a relatively new GPU (GTX 1650) so that can’t be the issue. And a live session shows it OK.

7

Output of pacman -Qs nvidia:

local/cuda 11.2.2-2
NVIDIA’s GPU programming toolkit
local/lib32-libvdpau 1.4-1
Nvidia VDPAU library
local/lib32-nvidia-utils 460.67-1
NVIDIA drivers utilities (32-bit)
local/libvdpau 1.4-1
Nvidia VDPAU library
local/linux510-nvidia 460.67-7 (linux510-extramodules)
NVIDIA drivers for linux.
local/mhwd-nvidia 460.67-1
MHWD module-ids for nvidia 460.67
local/mhwd-nvidia-340xx 340.108-1
MHWD module-ids for nvidia 340.108
local/mhwd-nvidia-390xx 390.141-1
MHWD module-ids for nvidia 390.141
local/nvidia-prime 1.0-4
NVIDIA Prime Render Offload configuration and utilities
local/nvidia-utils 460.67-1
NVIDIA drivers utilities
local/opencl-nvidia 460.67-1
OpenCL implemention for NVIDIA
local/xf86-video-nouveau 1.0.17-1 (xorg-drivers)
Open Source 3D acceleration driver for nVidia cards

8

Even when I switch to nvidia with optimus-manager, the driver manager shows the same.

9

You reboot after you re-enable the hardware?

I see already issues, you seem to have a messed up MHWD as you have inexistent old configs still installed.

But weird you also seem to have Nvidia installed

AND nouveau

The question is how did you setup all this, with Optimus, Prime, Nouveau all together on the system?

2 Likes
10

No idea how it all got installed. I switched between kernels quite a lot, and had to install and re-install the wifi driver (from a github page because it doesn’t work with the default kernels), other than that I just regularly updated the drivers alongside all the other software with pacman.

11

Please post the output of inxi -Gazy.

12

Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 630 vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel
bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:3e9b class-ID: 0300
Device-2: NVIDIA TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile / Max-Q] vendor: Lenovo
driver: nvidia v: 460.67 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm bus-ID: 01:00.0
chip-ID: 10de:1f91 class-ID: 0300
Device-3: Lite-On Integrated Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-8:3
chip-ID: 04ca:7070 class-ID: 0e02
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 compositor: kwin_x11 driver:
loaded: modesetting,nvidia display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2")
s-diag: 582mm (22.9")
Monitor-1: eDP-1 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 142 size: 344x194mm (13.5x7.6")
diag: 395mm (15.5")
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.2
direct render: Yes

13

Does grep -o 1f91 /var/lib/mhwd/ids/pci/nvidia.ids produce any output?

14

In your place, I would make a system backup with Timeshift, then remove everything (all drivers, Prime, Optimus, Nouveau), restore MHWD to a normal state (might need removal and proper re-installation), and see if from there you can install things properly.

Not sure the exact proper procedure but if you create a proper backup with Timeshift you can always go back to the starting point, your current system state.

15

Output of grep -o 1f91 /var/lib/mhwd/ids/pci/nvidia.ids:

1f91

I think I will need a system reinstall. Might be simpler for me than playing around with those individual components that I don’t feel comfortable with. I’ve been thinking about a reinstall, but at least you’ve clarified the need for me to do this :slightly_smiling_face:
I do it from time to time anyway, but thought I could work with the current installation a bit longer.

16

No I didn’t say that at all. I said you probably need to clean things up to sort things out.

If you want to reinstall the system it’s on you nobody suggested that. Also

17

Yes, I know. It’s totally on me, but it just made it clear to me that I might want to do that. I thought there would be a simple fix, but it turns out things are a bit messed up, so I think I’ll go for the total solution :slight_smile:
Anyway, thanks guys, I appreciate the quick responses and readiness to help.
:star_struck:

18

OK :slight_smile:

I used to often reinstall on Windows XP days, but with modern OS especially Linux based OS reinstall seems a bit radical to me :stuck_out_tongue: Anyway have fun.

//EDIT: also if you’re more patient, maybe someone will come with other suggestion and simpler things to try, as each individual we are here, can not know or think of everything.

19

Yes, I’ll wait a bit as I will need the laptop in the coming days, so I can’t mess with it until the end of next week.
Thanks!