this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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Noveau on old NVidia GPUs? (feddit.de)
submitted 1 year ago by Pantherina@feddit.de to c/linux@lemmy.ml
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I dont really want to use that proprietary driver, but I plan on getting an old Thinkpad W530 that has some probably pretty slow NVIDIA GPU. Do you know if these are well supported by Noveau? Would be great!

I want to play around with coreboot, flashing heads onto that laptop and all.

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[–] noddy@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

I would just get a T530 which is basically identical but it doesn't have the nvidia GPU. You can upgrade the screen to a W530 1080p one, they're interchangable.

You will have problems with the nvidia GPU on a W530 on linux. Especially if you want to use the displayport, as that is connected only to the nvidia GPU. Basically the displayport won't work without permanently enabling the nvidia GPU and disabling the intel iGPU, killing battery life.

Basically my general advice for a linux laptop is avoid nvidia at all cost.

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm running coreboot on a Thinkpad W530 and I've been doing fine.

I'm encountering some overheating issues and it might be due to the subpar dynamic power management thing, but only when it's under heavy load. I am running Gentoo and would be compiling big stuff like KDE, qtwebengine, and libreoffice. Sometimes the thermal shutdown would kick in, but thing's been better with cooling pad and air conditioning. I'll probably reapply the thermal paste soon.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Whoo, that sounds bad. I hope a more aggressive fancurve could fix this, it shoould be possible using thinkfan? Never succeeded with that software and its weird old documentation.

Btw, do you have any guide for flashing? A photo of your process, the location of the chips, names, order, extracting blobs etc? Documentation is so important! I will write some for the T430 and maybe W530 for heads

[–] timkenhan@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not the person you're replying to, but I happen to have a writeup on my blog! https://timkenhan.co/blog/20230720--w530-coreboot

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Great post! I didnt get the W530 in the end as 350€ is pretty much for such an old laptop, but someone else wanted it so bad...

I destroyed my CH341A and now I got a blue one but still shipping, then I will flash my T430 which should make no problems, no NVIDIA and all

[–] timkenhan@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

Should be more straightforward without the Nvidia stuff since you don't need the option ROM for it.

I never have T430, but all the 30 series should be the same in term of flashing procedure except for the chip locations.

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The overheating isn't much of an issue in other cases. When I'm not building packages, the temperature is on safe level. I've also ran Debian & Linux Mint on it with no issue (with nouveau)

I don't have any writeup on it, unfortunately...

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, the fans should kick up to highest level. I remember thinkpadfancontrol on windows, great software. This never happened and on Linux I never had my fans at level 7 no matter the heat

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

The fan did maxed out. Seems it's not enough. Maybe it's the hot weather. The AC helps a lot. I'll also be checking the thermal paste soon.

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Looks like that laptop has a Kepler generation GPU (NVE0). Accourding to the Nouveau feature matrix, these cards are almost completely supported (you might have power management issues and need external firmware to access the built-in accelerated video decoders). Switching back and forth between onboard video and the nvidia card may have additional issues.

[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

iirc last time I checked, heads does not support the nvidia GPU and will disable it. so you won't have to worry about the drivers.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks! Thats good/bad hahaha

I really want to get a Clevo NV41 that has intel xe graphics and 11th gen CPU, sounds awesome. Next cool thing would be risc-v

[–] atomkarinca@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 year ago

https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/FeatureMatrix.html

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unrelated but can you tell me what you mean by flashing heads onto it?

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Let me Google that for you XD

Okay results are really weird and not good.

osresearch.net/

Its a Coreboot distribution including verified boot, TPM or hardware key usage, so a good and controlled UEFI alternative

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

I tried to google it as well and came up empty. Thank you for your help. :)

Sounds like an interesting territory! Good luck with your project.