Please see UPDATE
A short addendum to my previous post to say that nVidia drivers numbered 256.xx allow the VGN-Z (and possibly others) to work without having to use the ConnectedMonitor option. This is a great boon in a multi-monitor scenario since you don’t have to have a phantom monitor when your external is unplugged. Additionally, nomodeset, and disabling of splash in GRUB are no longer necessary, however the xorg CustomEDID option is still required.
Unfortunately, 260.19.0x introduced a regression, actually hanging my VAIO, and certainly not presenting any working displays, so stick to 256.53 for now.
It’s worth noting that the regression was introduced because nVidia are actually trying to rectify the problem of detecting the internal displays of various problematic laptops (particularly VAIOs), so there is hope that we may be able to do away with the CustomEDID nonsense too.
From the nV News forum, regarding 260.19.0x:
The driver isn’t detecting the laptop’s internal panel. 260.19.06 has fixes for panel detection on a number of quirky laptops, but apparently it’s not working for you…
– AaronP
There’s a bug filed on panel detection problems on some VAIO laptops, so hopefully that’s the same issue and it’ll be fixed in a future release. For future reference, the bug number is #681330.
– AaronP
Another trick learned from that thread is that we can get EDID data from /proc. So, an updated xorg.conf might look like:
--- xorg.conf 2010-09-29 10:44:16.996719950 +1000
+++ xorg.conf.new 2010-09-29 10:50:01.796759876 +1000
@@ -1,41 +1,38 @@
Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Nvidia Default Flat Panel"
HorizSync 29.0 - 55.0
VertRefresh 0.0 - 61.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 9300M GS"
- Option "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP-0, DFP-2"
- Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/SNY06FA.bin"
+ Option "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/proc/acpi/video/DGPU/LCD/EDID"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "1"
- Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-2"
- Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP-2: nvidia-auto-select +1600+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection