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Hi,

I've upgraded my UL30A's BIOS from version 211 to version 212 [1] the
other day. While 211 was mostly working well, and the sole BIOS
'changelog' entry for v211 just says "Firmware Change" (doh!) I still
thought it's worth a try.

So I upgraded, and the upgrade went smoothly. Unfortunately, after
booting the same Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) AMD64 with the same (default)
kernel version and patchlevel as before (linux-image-2.6.31-20-generic
2.6.31-20.58) with the same (default) kernel parameters and no relevant
change in installed packages, I realized that the external monitor I had
attached via VGA cable before and after the BIOS upgrade, was no longer
getting detected by X as the product type and model it is (but I knew it
was getting detected before the BIOS upgrade).

As recommended by Asus, I had loaded manufacture BIOS defaults before
upgrading the BIOS. After upgrading the BIOS, I have fully unpowered
both the UL30A (battery removed, power cable pulled) and the external
monitor (power cable pulled). I then loaded manufacture defaults,
configured my preferences as they had been set before the update, and
did another cold reset. By this time, X should have been able to detect
the external monitor (since this had worked before) as what it is, and
as what it detected it in the past:

> 	Identifier "DELL 2209WA"
> 	VendorName "DEL"
> 	ModelName "DELL 2209WA"

It is my impression that v212 breaks VGA EDID detection. get-edid from
the read-edid package fails with:
> Reading next EDID block
> 
> VBE/DDC service about to be called
> 	Read EDID
> 
> 	Performing real mode VBE call
> 	Interrupt 0x10 ax=0x4f15 bx=0x1 cx=0x0
> 	Function supported
> 	Call failed
> 
> The EDID data should not be trusted as the VBE call failed
>  
> EDID claims 19 more blocks left
> EDID blocks left is wrong.
> Your EDID is probably invalid.

On the old system, the external monitor would have been correctly detected.

I have notified Asus about this issue. However, I had previously
reported firmware issues to customer support, they asked me about the OS
I run, I responded "Linux, but it doesn't matter in this case - it's a
firmware issue", and they responded "we don't support Linux" - and this
was the end of the discussion. So I don't neccessarily expect a fix this
time either, unless this story somehow makes it to the firmware
developers' office. Of course, I would be and will be happy to stand
corrected. Let's hope some users of the only supported OS on this system
run into the same issue, too.

For now, I recommend not to upgrade to v113 if you are to use an
external monitor connected through a VGA cable, which you want to run at
a higher resolution or refresh rate than the laptops' own display.

I'd be happy to learn that my impression is wrong in case anyone else is
running this combination successfully.

I will downgrade to BIOS v111 during the next days and should then be
able to have successfull monitor detection again if my assumptions don't
fail me.

Moritz

[1]
http://support.asus.com/download/download_item_mkt.aspx?slanguage=en-us&model=UL30A