HP Pavilion g6-2313AX Ubuntu Linux Driver Problem Solution / Review

Updated for Ubuntu 13.04.
I recently purchased HP Pavilion G6-2313AX Laptop. Its ships with free DOS. Here I am sharing my experience with Ubuntu on it which is not that good. For Windows 8 drivers visit here. Its hardware specification are:

Product Name	g6-2313ax
Product Number	D5F90PA
Microprocessor	2.3 GHz AMD Quad-Core A10-4600M
Microprocessor Cache	4 MB L2 cache
Memory	6 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Video Graphics	AMD Radeon HD 7660G/7670M Dual GPU (2 GB DDR3 dedicated)
Display	15.6" diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit (1366 x 768)
Hard Drive	1 TB 5400 rpm SATA
Multimedia Drive	SuperMulti DVD burner
Network Card	Integrated 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
Wireless Connectivity	Bluetooth 802.11b/g/n
Sound	2 x Altec Lansing Internal speakers; Dolby Advanced Audio v2 Audio playback; Dual speakers
Keyboard	Full-size island-style keyboard
Pointing Device	TouchPad supporting multi-touch gestures and on/off button
PC Card Slots	Multi-format digital media card reader for secure digital cards & multimedia cards
External Ports	2 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 1 HDMI 1 VGA 1 RJ-45 1 Headphone-out (Stereo) 1 Microphone-in
Dimensions	37.6 x 24.4 x 3.63 cm
Weight	Starting at 2.48 kg
Power	90W AC Power Adapter 6-cell Li-Ion
What's In The Box	HP TrueVision HD Webcam with integrated digital microphone (High Definition low-light)

Source

As a Ubuntu user I installed Ubuntu on it. Installation of Ubuntu is very simple and Ubuntu installed successfully and supports UEFI boot. The problem starts after the installation complete. Drivers for many devices are not available with default Ubuntu installation. Some of the problems I faced are:

• No graphic driver by default.
• Without graphic driver brightness up/down key does not work.
• Processor runs at full load without graphic driver and fan make too much noise
• No driver support for Bluetooth in Ubuntu 13.04
• Wifi on/off key on keyboard indicator does not work
• Poor battery life without graphic driver
• AMD proprietary graphic driver (fglrx) from Ubuntu Software center fails to load.
• Touch-pad on/off button do not work with Ubuntu 13.04

I searched the internet for the solution of these problem and found solution to most of the problems. Here I am sharing all those solution at one place.

Update Ubuntu First:

Connect to internet using LAN/Ethernet or by some other means as WiFi does not work with default installation. Just after installation first thing to do is to update the Ubuntu . This can be done easily using Software Updater available from Ubuntu dashboard. Install all new updates and restart PC when it ask to do so. This will require fast internet connection.

Do not update if you are installing Ubuntu 13.04 otherwise new Linux Kernel will create problem for WiFi drivers. Check the Linux Kernel version support the WiFi drivers which is available in Ubuntu updates. See the Installing WiFi driver below in this article.

Installation of Graphic Driver for AMD Radeon HD 7660G/7670M Dual GPU:

Visit the AMD web site and download latest beta graphic driver from AMD site. This link has the newest stable and beta version of AMD Catalyst proprietary Linux display driver. The stable version now works good with with this laptop's hardware so no need to try beta version and the stable version works great.

Open the terminal and run the following command:

sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++6 dkms libqtgui4 wget execstack libelfg0 dh-modaliases linux-headers-generic ia32-libs

Usually the downloaded file goes into Downloads directory. Now extract the downloaded AMD driver file and there will be a .run file after unzip. Change the directory to Downloads in the terminal using command.

cd Downloads

Run these commands in terminal and check the file name of the downloaded file:

sudo sh ./amd-catalyst-13.4-linux-x86.x86_64.run

This command will ask you enter root password, provide and further graphical installation will start. But no text will be displayed on the buttons so continue blindly clicking right most button with default installation.

-->

On the next screen there will be a window showing progress two bars. At the end it will ask to restart. After restart check the brightness up/down keys if they are working or not. They should be working fine now.

From Ubuntu dashboard open AMD Catalyst Control Center to view and change the settings.

Graphics Information.

To get more battery backup choose Power-saving GPU.

After installing the AMD Radeon HD 7660G/7670M Dual GPU processor will run smoothly and the processor fan will make less noise.

There will be a watermark  displaying "AMD Test Use Only" at the lower right corner of the display. To remove it visit this link.

One important thing that I observe is that whenever I install updates the graphic driver breaks and I have to uninstall graphic driver from terminal and then reinstall them.

Installing WiFi Driver:
This laptop has the following WiFi and blutooth components.

Network controller	Ralink corp. Device 3290
Bluetooth	Ralink corp. Device 3298

WiFi works with default drivers provided but there are frequent disconnects even if laptop is just few feet away from router.So poor WiFi drivers support, so I would recommend to use external WiFi dongle.


Bluetooth never worked and I did not wasted time on it as I do not need it.

Benchmarks for HP Pavilion g6-2313AX:

Package used : HardInfo 0.5.1

CPU Blowfish:
HP Pavilion g6-2313AX	1999 MHz	3.979
Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz	(null)	26.1876862
PowerPC 740/750 (280.00MHz)	(null)	172.816713

CPU CryptoHash:
HP Pavilion g6-2313AX	1999 MHz	305.384

CPU Fibonacci
HP Pavilion g6-2313AX	1999 MHz	2.187
Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz	(null)	8.1375674
PowerPC 740/750 (280.00MHz)	(null)	58.07682

CPU N-Queens
HP Pavilion g6-2313AX	1999 MHz	6.346

FPU FFT HP Pavilion g6-2313AX                              1999 MHz 1.237 FPU Raytracing HP Pavilion g6-2313AX 1999 MHz 3.772 Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz (null) 40.8816714 PowerPC 740/750 (280.00MHz) (null) 161.312647

Battery and Graphics:

Battery performance with external graphics card enabled is very very poor, approximately one and half hour. Battery life with internal graphics enabled is good and is approximately two and half hour or less. But to switch external graphics to internal power saving graphics you have to restart the laptop after changing the settings in AMD Catalyst and that is a big problem.

If you are buying it thinking that it has external graphic card than you should rethink. The external graphic card eats too much battery and you may have to switch to internal graphics for normal use.


Heating Problem:

Now its summer in India and if I put this laptop on bed and use it then it becomes so heated and I observe thermal shut-down once while the Intel laptop works fine. Even the cooling pad does not help.

At the end after using HP Pavilion g6-2313AX for few months with Ubuntu the conclusion is that this is not a good deal, even my other two year old Dell Inspiron i5 laptop gives better and smooth performance than g6-2313AX. This laptop is crap. I would be lucky if I get a chance to exchange it with Intel one.I would suggest you not to buy this laptop.

HP Pavilion G6-2313AX with Windows 8 and drivers.

HP Pavilion G6-2313AX dual boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu