Problem Restatement

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

Step1 uninstall the old version NVIDIA driver

sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia*

If the above command is not work, you can try the command below which is more effective.

sudo /usr/bin/nvidia-uninstall 

Step2 download the NVIDIA driver

Search your NVIDIA driver by input your computer information in Nvidia Web.
And then download the .run file.

step3 install the NVIDIA driver

sudo service lightdm stop // Ensure it doesn't work, maybe default is stop state.
sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-390.77.run // Change the filename to what you download
sudo service lightdm start

Some tips !Importanct!

• The distribution-provided pre-install script failed! Are you sure you want to continue? Choose “yes” to continue.
• Would you like to register the kernel module souces with DKMS? This will allow DKMS to automatically build a new module, if you install a different kernel later? Choose “no” to continue.
• Nvidia’s 32-bit compatibility libraries? Choose “no” to continue.
• Would you like to run the nvidia-xconfigutility to automatically update your x configuration so that the NVIDIA x driver will be used when you restart x? Any pre-existing x confile will be backed up. Choose “yes” to continue.

Reference

Ubuntu安装、更新显卡驱动
linux服务器 更新显卡驱动