NVIDIA drivers Ubuntu with VGA for the P215H

Okay, here’s the deal, I couldn’t get my native resolution to work no matter what I did, but I managed to luck out and find an example xconfig from someone using the same monitor who had a DVI connection to the monitor. Apparently a couple of the refresh timings were wrong, so X could not recognize my mode. I don’t know what made me look there, other than I had tried everything else, and I had just happened to notice that NVIDIA was setting them different. I found the timings by total accident while looking to see if anyone happened to upload a copy of the edid.bin somewhere. I never found that, but now I don’t need it. Anyway, I’m going to share the installation instructions, and a copy of my xorg.conf with you all to save anyone else with this monitor and no DVI the headache of troubleshooting it themselves.

Step One: Upgrade System

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic linux-source
sudo reboot

Step Two: Install Drivers

sudo apt-get install nvidia-experimental-304

Step Three: Create /etc/X11/xorg.conf

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 304.48  (buildd@allspice)  Fri Oct 12 12:51:52 UTC 2012

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 304.48  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-05.nvidia.com)  Sun Sep  9 21:29:02 PDT 2012

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

    # HorizSync source: builtin, VertRefresh source: builtin
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "CRT-0"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 82.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 76.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 6150SE nForce 430"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "ModeValidation" "AllowNonEdidModes"
    Option         "UseEdidFreqs" "False"
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0"
    Option         "metamodes" "1920x1080 +0+0; nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Step Four: Reboot

sudo reboot

Once you’re done rebooting, you should have the proper display mode, however, you may need to go into your display settings from the gnome control panel and select it.