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:0000:01:00.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=io+mem
[   17.037284] [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20150116 for 0000:01:00.0 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! (0x30:0xffffffff: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:0000:01:00.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=io+mem
[   20.942365] [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20150116 for 0000:01:00.0 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! (0x30:0xffffffff: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! (0x30:0xffffffff: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:0000:01:00.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=io+mem
[   20.889811] [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20150116 for 0000:01:00.0 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! (0x30:0xffffffff:867)
[  149.866576] NVRM: rm_init_adapter(0) failed