[vox-tech] Acer AL2216W (blank screen)

[Thomas Johnston]

I am running Kubuntu 10.04 (64 bit) on my Dell Vostro 1500 and using
an Acer AL2216W as a second monitor. Everything was working great
until last Monday morning. I powered up the computer, activated the
external monitor and the max resolution was 1280x1024 (the native
resolution is 1680x1050 - same as my laptop display). I didn't do
anything to modify any video settings so I don't know exactly what
prompted the change; however, there were about 10 "bug fixes" the day
before. Looking at the history of fixes I don't see anything that
looks likely to cause a problem, but I am certainly not a Linux
expert.

Anyway, I have spent the last 4 days doing everything I can to make it
work again: updated drivers, uninstalled/reinstalled drivers, deleting
the xorg.conf file and having one auto generated, manually editing the
xorg.conf .... nothing has worked. In fact, the situation is now
worse. I can't even get the monitor to display anything anymore - just
a black screen. I think the monitor itself is fine, if I turn it on I
see the "ACER" logo appear, then I briefly see a dialog box that says
"no signal", and then it goes blank. I don't have a great
understanding of the xorg.conf file, but I was very careful when
editing it. I read all of the NVIDIA documentation online and I found
examples of xorg.conf files online from people with this same monitor
who claimed to have it working, so I don't think I used a refresh/sync
rate beyond what the monitor is capable of (I didn't smell any
smoke!).  My Google searches have indicated that many people have had
problems reading EDID data from this monitor. I have even plugged it
into a Windows machine with an ATI graphics card and same
thing...blank screen.

I checked the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file and I see this warning:
(WW) Sep 16 15:07:43 NVIDIA(GPU-0): Unable to read EDID for display device CRT-0

there are no errors (EE) generated.

Other system details in case it is relevant:
The monitor is connected to my graphics card via the VGA port (my
laptop doesn't have any other display ports; however the monitor does
have a DVI-D connection)
NVIDIA Driver Version: 256.53
Server Version: 1.7.6
NV-CONTROL Version: 1.23
Graphics Card: GeForce 8600M GT


My question is: do you think the monitor is toast or would work again
if I could get a working EDID.bin and/or xorg.conf file (perhaps from
kind soul on the interwebs)?


thanks in advance,

Thomas