Ubuntu

MSI EX630 laptop won't work with nvidia drivers

Asked by zzarko

Two days ago I bought the MSI EX630X laptop and installed Ubuntu 8.10 x86 on it. So far, I had no luck in getting it to work with nvidia drivers. I tried Ubuntu-suggested 177 and 173 versions, also the latest from nvidia site (180.29), but all I got is the message

(II) Primary Device is:
(EE) No devices detected.

The laptop has nvidia 9300m graphic card with its own 256MB (as the specification says). The lspci command revealed that it has two graphic cards, one on PCI:2:0:0 (9100M G) and one on PCI:3:0:0 (9300M GS). I also tried to force Busid with both of the cards, one at a time, without success. Currently, I'm unable to get any graphics (I tried nvidia-uninstall too, but still just text screen; tried to put vesa as driver, tried xfix, nothing helped). Graphic mode works if I boot with live CD, although extremly slow (it takes 1-2 seconds just to erase/repaint the screen). MSI tech support told me that the laptop is designed for (*cough*) Vista, but that information was nowhere to be found on site (that's the reason I bought it, it has a very good specifications, at least on paper; bought it without OS; if I knew it won't work with nvidia linux drivers, my decision would be different). I'm thinking of returning it, and buying something with ATI graphic. Even after fresh install, the machine is practicaly unusable because of way too slow graphic. Did anyone had the similar problem? Any solutions?

Best regards,
Zarko Zivanov

P.S. I tried (twice) to copy nvidia-bug-report.log file (generated after failing to start X server) into this question, but apparently it's too big.

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Tom
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#1

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedDrivers

Revision history for this message
zzarko (zzarko) said : 		#2

As I said, I tried Ubuntu-restricted drivers (through System->Administration->Hardware Drivers), and I also tried official nvidia drivers (latest from their site) without success. I'm dealing with all sorts of graphic cards under Linux for almost 3 years now, but I was unable to solve this problem...

A tech guy from MSI told me that MSI EX630 actually doesn't have a 9300M graphic card (although that is information I got from MSI site), it has something called Hybrid SLI 9400M, and for this there are only Vista drivers at the moment. I'm returning the laptop today.

Revision history for this message
Best Tom (tom6) said : 		#3

Returning the machine was excellent. We need to hassle hardware manufacturers more about supplying just 1 open-source driver per product. From that 1 all linux distros and even all Macs could find a driver developed by the communities. Returning a machine and telling them that you're returning it because of the lack of support for a linux might force hardware manufacturers to make more effort to produce an Open-Source driver. I've a few links to sites that might be interested to hear of this incompatibility issue. They might have it listed already but may want some sort of verification from someone that has actually tried. It's about the only way to keep these lists up-to-date.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SupportedArchitectures

http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw

Many thanks and regards from
Tom :))

Revision history for this message
zzarko (zzarko) said : 		#4

Thanks Tom, that solved my question.

Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#5

Another chap had an nVidia GeForce 9500M and managed to get proprietary drivers working on that laptop. Seems that the 9300 is unsupported though and this whole series seems to be ultra new. Is it worth clicking the link at the top of this launchpad thread to make this into a bug-report too? It seesm a bit cheeky me clicking it as i'm a bit clueless if they need any additional details.

Thanks for giving me the karma points for this
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Revision history for this message
Roxbury (roxbury78) said : 		#6

I have a MSI EX630 and it works with the latest nVidia Driver. Just installed yesterday. :)

Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#7

Roxbury
Please post this as a new question using this link
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion
or by going to the Launchpad website and either roll down beyond the end of the thread of this question or something.

Thanks and regards from
Tom :)

PS Don't worry about this. Trying to post a new question gives you a list of 10 nearest most likely "Solved" answers but it might be that you're having a slightly different problem. It helps the Ubuntu Community when people post questions :)

Revision history for this message
Tom (tom6) said : 		#8

Dohh, now i've read what you said please ignore my last posting! lol

Good to hear it works with 9.04 but it's still good that hardware manufacturers had something returned 'a lost sale' because of lack of support for linux. As i said before we need to raise awareness that we wont always just roll-over or cave-in. We want to buy their stuff but we don't want to be restricted in how we use it after it belongs to one of us.

So it's all good and worked out well :)
Thanks and regards from
Tom :)