I recently purchased a BenQ W600+ projector that I'd like to use with my ThinkPad T410 with Nvidia graphics running Ubuntu 12.10. The native resolution of the projector is 1280x720 (i.e. 720p), but I haven't been able to configure the Nvidia driver to actually use this resolution. The projector is connected to the VGA port. The driver is nvidia-current (I think).

Here are the resolutions offered by the "Displays" system settings. Note that 1280x720 is not listed:

I followed the directions under "Adding undetected resolutions" at wiki.ubuntu.com, but they lead to an error:

xrandr --newmode "1280x720"x0.0   74.25  1280 1390 1430 1650  720 725 730 750 -hsync -vsync 

xrandr --addmode VGA-0 1280x720x0.0

Here's the error message from the second xrandr command:

X Error of failed request:  BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)

  Major opcode of failed request:  140 (RANDR)

  Minor opcode of failed request:  18 (RRAddOutputMode)

  Serial number of failed request:  39

  Current serial number in output stream:  40

I also see this error message in /var/log/Xorg.0.log:

[  2284.687] (WW) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Unable to read EDID for display device CRT-0

[  2284.687] (**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the EDID for display

[  2284.687] (**) NVIDIA(0):     device CRT-0 (Using EDID frequencies has been enabled on

[  2284.687] (**) NVIDIA(0):     all display devices.)

I have another machine, a ThinkPad T510, with Intel graphics and running an earlier release of Ubuntu. On that machine the projector works fine, and the following appears in the Xorg logfile:

(II) intel(0): EDID vendor "BNQ", prod id 52737

(II) intel(0): Using hsync ranges from config file

(II) intel(0): Using vrefresh ranges from config file

(II) intel(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:

(II) intel(0): Modeline "1280x720"x0.0   74.25  1280 1390 1430 1650  720 725 730 750 -hsync -vsync (45.0 kHz)

The nvidia-settings program is similarly unhelpful. The "Acquire EDID" option is grayed out:

And it also doesn't offer the 1280x720 resolution:

I don't have any /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. I did try running nvidia-xconfig to create an xorg.conf file, but that seemed to make everything much worse: the projector came up only in 640x480, and the mouse cursor would get "stuck" on one of the displays. When X starts with this xorg.conf file, I also get this error message popup box:

How can I get the projector to work at 1280x720 on my T410?