Also experiencing this issue, on a Sony Vaio laptop. The card is an
Nvidia GeForce 8400M GT. It was working under 15.10.
The latest driver in the graphics-drivers PPA, nvidia-364, does not
support the video card:
[ 243.591384] NVRM: The NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT GPU installed in this system is
NVRM: supported through the NVIDIA 340.xx Legacy drivers. Please
NVRM: visit http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html for more
NVRM: information. The 364.19 NVIDIA driver will ignore
NVRM: this GPU. Continuing probe...
The current recommended driver in the graphics-drivers PPA, nvidia-352,
also does not support the card:
[ 183.787047] NVRM: The NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT GPU installed in this system is
NVRM: supported through the NVIDIA 340.xx Legacy drivers. Please
NVRM: visit http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html for more
NVRM: information. The 361.42 NVIDIA driver will ignore
NVRM: this GPU. Continuing probe...
For some reason installing the package nvidia-352 also installs the
package nvidia-361. The one option in the graphics-drivers PPA after the
driver-recommended version 340 but before the PPA-recommended version
352 is 346. Installing nvidia-346 also installs nvidia-352 and
nvidia-361 and so gives the same message as nvidia-352.
The version those later driver versions recommend, 340, seemingly fails
in some way. It apparently does load but then gives the same error
mentioned in the OP. This happens both when I install that version of
the driver manually, either nvidia-340 or nvidia-340-updates, using
`sudo apt-get install nvidia-340` or `sudo apt-get install
nvidia-340-updates`:
[ 17.015956] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[ 17.015961] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
[ 17.028907] nvidia: module verification failed: signature and/or required
key missing - tainting kernel
[ 17.036538] vgaarb: device changed decodes:
PCI::01:00.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=io+mem
[ 17.037284] [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20150116 for :01:00.0 on
minor 0
[ 17.037295] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 340.96 Sun Nov
8 22:33:28 PST 2015
[ 17.335519] nvidia_uvm: Loaded the UVM driver, major device number 246
[ 17.757950] NVRM: failed to copy vbios to system memory.
[ 17.758187] NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x30:0x:747)
[ 17.758215] NVRM: rm_init_adapter failed for device bearing minor number 0
[ 17.758284] NVRM: nvidia_frontend_open: minor 0, module->open() failed,
error -5
And when I let Ubuntu install it automatically, using `sudo ubuntu-
drivers autoinstall`:
[ 20.921331] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[ 20.921336] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
[ 20.934363] nvidia: module verification failed: signature and/or required
key missing - tainting kernel
[ 20.941739] vgaarb: device changed decodes:
PCI::01:00.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=io+mem
[ 20.942365] [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20150116 for :01:00.0 on
minor 0
[ 20.942376] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 340.96 Sun Nov
8 22:33:28 PST 2015
[ 21.141342] nvidia_uvm: Loaded the UVM driver, major device number 246
[ 21.414795] NVRM: failed to copy vbios to system memory.
[ 21.415032] NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x30:0x:747)
[ 21.415057] NVRM: rm_init_adapter failed for device bearing minor number 0
[ 21.415127] NVRM: nvidia_frontend_open: minor 0, module->open() failed,
error -5
The last 4 lines happen multiple times in the dmesg log, I guess
whenever something tries to use the nvidia kernel module:
[ 17.757950] NVRM: failed to copy vbios to system memory.
[ 17.758187] NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x30:0x:747)
[ 17.758215] NVRM: rm_init_adapter failed for device bearing minor number 0
[ 17.758284] NVRM: nvidia_frontend_open: minor 0, module->open() failed,
error -5
The older driver package nvidia-304 (also reported by ubuntu-drivers as
compatible with the card) seemingly loads fine but then gives a similar
error whenever I execute a program that tries to use it. The alternative
package nvidia-304-updates also does this:
[ 20.868063] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[ 20.868070] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
[ 20.881968] nvidia: module verification failed: signature and/or required
key missing - tainting kernel
[ 20.889503] vgaarb: device changed decodes:
PCI::01:00.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=io+mem
[ 20.889811] [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20150116 for :01:00.0 on
minor 0
[ 20.889821] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 304.131 Sun Nov
8 21:43:33 PST 2015
..
[ 149.866402] NVRM: failed to copy vbios to system memory.
[ 149.866568] NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x30:0x:867)
[ 149.866576] NVRM: rm_init_adapter(0) failed
--
You rec
