Deactivate one graphics device in a SLI system

Question

As it is now, I have a gaming laptop (Dell XPS M1730, Build Dec 2008) with 2 GeForce 9800M GT with SLI activated running Ubuntu 12.04.

When I use any graphics river that is aware of acceleration features the system crashes after a short period of time.

After I removed and purged jockey my system runs stably but slowly, but I can use it for now (I have to choose recovery at startup and the resume boot, booting up normal results in a color flickering screen).

But since the system is runs slowly, I would like to try to work with only one graphics device.

I want to first test device A, if that doesn't work then test with device B.

A testing tool for Windows already told me, that one of the cards doesn't work properly, but it doesn't say which one (same crashes in Windows when programs or desktop uses acceleration).

Therefore I wanted to ask, if there is a way to reinstall any nVidia (or third party) driver, deactivate one of the two devices and test the stability?

Answer 1

I'm a new Ubuntu user, and I have a M1730 like you. To disable the second graphic card, you have to execute the following commands ...

sudo nvidia-xconfig --sli=off
sudo nvidia-xconfig --multigpu=off

... in your terminal (open it with ctrl+alt+t) and restart your laptop.

I did that because compiz fusion ran slower with the 2 cards in sli. I don't know why, maybe a driver problem.

I use the 304 because with the "recomended" driver I can't shut down and restart the computer, it seems to be a Dell problem.