Dell XPS 17 702X Help - Nvidia Optimus

[StormStrikes]

I bought this laptop a couple weeks ago and was all excited to get it. I knew it had the Nvidia card in it and that that would probably require the use of proprietary drivers in Linux (I use Xubuntu 11.10) Well I never imagined I would have the issues I have had getting the graphics card working and certainly knew nothing of the issues with Optimus.

Well to make a short story long I have tried the Linux proprietary drivers, I tried the driver directly from Nvidia and so on. And I either ended up with a system that would not completely boot or hitting a brick wall. I even went as far as to tear the laptop apart to see if I could just completely unplug the Nvidia card, but of course its integrated into the main board. I really dont care if the Nvidia part works or not, though I have to say I would prefer it did because Ive always bought laptops with just basic specs, my focus being more in the area of battery life and RAM, etc. This is the first time I have bought a laptop with something remotely considered 'higher end' specs so it would be nice to get the experience of the graphics capabilities.

At any rate, my main beef is with the stupid fan. It runs CONSTANTLY. Though my CPU temps stay mostly in the low 120* range. I assume the fan is running constantly because of the graphics card and having no specific driver for it. Thats my Assumption anyway. It has a 9-cell battery and it doesnt look like Im going to get more than a couple to three hours of run time on it which I guess many would be happy with but I have a Dell Inspiron 1750 with a T4300 CPU in it and I get over 7 hours of run time in it with a 9-cell battery. I know its not an apples to apples comparison but the constant running of the fan on the XPS certainly is not helping. I leave the XPS at home as a result and carry the 1750 with me because of its longevity.

Ive read about Ironhide/Bumblebee driver, the Nouveu driver and so on. My hope is that if one of those properly installed and working would at the very least shut the dang fan up, stop it from running constantly.

What I am not clear on is the proper install process for getting either Ironhide or any other driver installed. Can anyone help out with that? The last thing I did was just wipe out all the drivers and Im running purely from the Intel graphics as far as I know. Ive used linux for a while now so I dont mind the command line I just would like to find some kind of instructions on what the proper sequence is for getting the Nvidia graphics working or if someone has any thoughts on why the fan is constantly running I would appreciate help there if you dont believe its due to the graphics card.

Thanks in advance for any assistance and my apologies for such a long first post. I figured more details would help.

[StormStrikes]

Coen Naninck,

You did not waste your time typing, however the notice that you replied to the thread came just as I was getting ready for work so I wont be able to try anything out until then but you put forth such an effort and detailed information that I wanted to reply and let you know I am aware of your post. I will also confirm that I am using Xubuntu 11.10 (Dont get me started on Unity, it wont be pretty) and that the graphics card is a GT550M.

It is good to know, at least that the constantly running fan is an unrelated issue to the graphics card. So there may be hope yet for this laptop, I will see. I will get a copy of Xubuntu 11.04 downloaded and see how that pans out.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply and do so with so much information and detail. I cannot begin to thank you enough. Even if nothing works, you still took the time to reply and put forth a great effort in helping and for that I am very grateful.

[StormStrikes]

You are the kind of person I like to know. I dont like hording information. It does me no good to keep it to myself but the impact that can be had by sharing is unmeasurable.

Im at work finally but unfortunately I am behind a proxy here and I have yet to be able to get anything to download from the repositories behind the proxy. I can surf the web and all that but it blocks me being able to download software form any repository. So that issue along with the constantly running fan I only take my Dell 1750 with me and its working perfectly.

You've got me kind of wired to get the Nvidia graphics working but once I am able to work on it I will post back the results. Since the fan seems to be a separate issue I will just start with a clean install of 11.04 and go from there. Once the fan is off I will work on the graphics card. Once I get home tonight I have to get right to bed as I have a terribly early day tomorrow for some other work I do after that I will have the rest of the weekend to work on this project and I will report back all that happens.

Oh, I thought I would mention also that I saw the posts on phoronix about the kernel power issue and I implemented their solution into my GRUB file but it did not help the fan issue on the XPS laptop.

[StormStrikes]

Thank you for the update. Im going to print this out anyway, so I will have all your wonderful instructions to follow without having the need of being connected to the internet.

[StormStrikes]

Okay, got a quick question. I downloaded Xubuntu 11.04 and burned it to a CD and booted up using that. If it were a kernel bug issue keeping the fan running, would not booting to the CD result in it not running as it does under 11.10? Or do I have to do a full install to see the benefit?