I don't know how to put it other than the combination of a Dell Precision m65 laptop, Nvidia Quadro FX 350M graphics card, and Nouveau driver leads to some bizarre behavior by the screen.

The first stage of symptoms is the screen remains black during the boot process.  As the kernel loads, only when it kicks into graphics mode does the screen turn on.  (This makes it impossible to edit the BIOS settings on the computer.)  Also, the brightness/contrast settings stop working properly.  Only two options remain: maximum brightness or minimum brightness.

The second stage of symptoms is, after the screen comes alive during graphics mode, when it boots into the desktop environment it becomes dark again.  Or, the screen remains dark during the entire boot process.  In either case I have to reboot the computer and cross my fingers it will work the next time.

The last stage of symptoms is the screen, when it does work, becomes fuzzy and nearly unreadable.  At that point the only option is to use an external monitor, but sometimes that fails to work properly too.  More important, it ruins the point of having a portable computer.

I have witnessed the same outcome on two different m65 laptops.  I did not keep track of the timeline of events for the first one, but the second one went through the first two stages in less than two days.  I would like to rescue it before it reaches the third stage.

I have attached the output from the kernel and X11.  If there are any questions, please ask.


Thanks