NVidia GeForce 710M is not properly detected

[Teo]

I installed Ubuntu 13.04 on a new laptop which has an NVidia GeForce 710M and later upgraded it to Ubuntu 13.10 and finally 14.04.

After almost a year, I'm astonished to find out that my NVidia card is not even being used. The Intel Graphics card built into the motherboard is being used instead.

The "Additional Drivers" tab under Software & Updates shows what you can see in the attached screenshot:
"NVIDIA Corporation: GeForce 710M
This device is using an alternative driver"
and the selected item in the list is
"Using X.Org X server - Nouveau display driver from xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (open source)"

I knew that means I'm not using the proprietary NVidia drivers, but isn't nouveau supposed to support NVidia?

Here's the output of "glxinfo |grep OpenGL":
OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile
OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 10.1.3
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 3.30
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL extensions:

Is there a workaround?

Also, I wonder whether it's safe to select NVidia's proprietary drivers in the Additional Drivers tab.
I ask because once upon a time I tried to install them using "sudo apt-get install nvidia-something" and it screwed up Xorg completely.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.10-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-32.57-generic 3.13.11.4
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-32-generic x86_64
.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.2
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: compiz
CompositorUnredirectDriverBlacklist: '(nouveau|Intel).*Mesa 8.0'
CompositorUnredirectFSW: true
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Tue Aug 5 21:22:53 2014
DistUpgraded: 2014-05-24 19:43:23,984 DEBUG enabling apt cron job
DistroCodename: trusty
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus: vboxhost, 4.3.14, 3.13.0-32-generic, x86_64: installed
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes, if not too technical
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0647]
 NVIDIA Corporation GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M] [10de:1140] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] GeForce 710M [1025:0691]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-11 (298 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
MachineType: Acer Aspire V3-571G
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-32-generic.efi.signed root=UUID=5830b30e-69e8-4bb4-8a2b-bc2b43c7414a ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-05-24 (73 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 10/15/2012
dmi.bios.vendor: Acer
dmi.bios.version: V2.07
dmi.board.asset.tag: Type2 - Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: VA50_HC_CR
dmi.board.vendor: Acer
dmi.board.version: Type2 - Board Version
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Acer
dmi.chassis.version: V2.07
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAcer:bvrV2.07:bd10/15/2012:svnAcer:pnAspireV3-571G:pvrV2.07:rvnAcer:rnVA50_HC_CR:rvrType2-BoardVersion:cvnAcer:ct10:cvrV2.07:
dmi.product.name: Aspire V3-571G
dmi.product.version: V2.07
dmi.sys.vendor: Acer
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.11.2+14.04.20140714-0ubuntu1
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.52-1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 10.1.3-0ubuntu0.1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 10.1.3-0ubuntu0.1
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.15.1-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.8.2-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.3.0-1ubuntu3.1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.910-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.10-1ubuntu2
xserver.bootTime: Mon Aug 4 18:06:36 2014
xserver.configfile: default
xserver.errors:
 Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
 Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
 NOUVEAU(G0): [XvMC] Failed to initialize extension.
xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.outputs:
 product id 9170
 vendor ACI
xserver.version: 2:1.15.1-0ubuntu2

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Teo, as per http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers an update to your computer's buggy and outdated BIOS is available (2.21). If you update to this following https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BIOSUpdate does it change anything?

If it doesn't, could you please both specify what happened, and provide the output of the following terminal command:
sudo dmidecode -s bios-version && sudo dmidecode -s bios-release-date

For more on BIOS updates and linux, please see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette .

Please note your current BIOS is already in the Bug Description, so posting this on the old BIOS would not be helpful. As well, you don't have to create a new bug report.

Once the BIOS is updated, if the problem is still reproducible, and the information above is provided, then please mark this report Status New. Otherwise, please mark this as Invalid.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]