Sometimes Xorg doesn't start

Question

I sometimes have a problem when i turn on my computer and Xorg doesn't start properly and all i see is a dark screen. Before starting Xorg everything works fine, but when i do startx there is only blackness and i have to reboot. When i was going through the logs i found errors like
localhost kernel: [  381.110335] [drm:drm_edid_block_valid] *ERROR* EDID checksum is invalid, remainder is 95
localhost kernel: [  381.110338] Raw EDID:
localhost kernel: [  381.110340]      00 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 32 0c 01 1f 00 00 00 00
localhost kernel: [  381.110342]      00 19 01 03 f8 3f 1f 7c 0a 19 45 97 58 53 8b 28
localhost kernel: [  381.110345]      24 50 54 00 00 00 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01
localhost kernel: [  381.110347]      01 01 01 01 01 01 5e 33 90 70 61 1a 14 40 40 7f
localhost kernel: [  381.110349]      67 00 7f ff 18 00 00 19 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
localhost kernel: [  381.110351]      00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 fe 00 4c
localhost kernel: [  381.110354]      47 50 68 69 6c 69 70 73 4c 43 44 0a 00 00 00 fe
localhost kernel: [  381.110356]      00 4c 50 31 35 34 57 45 32 2d 54 4c 41 34 00 23
localhost kernel: [  381.110363] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: LVDS-1: EDID block 0 invalid.
localhost kernel: [  381.110366] [drm] nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DDC responded, but no EDID for LVDS-1
As you can see i use nouveau driver. The problem seems to be that display does not give a correct EDID to the nouveau and Xorg doesn't start. I have a hp laptop and i have had problems with its display for some time now (it sometimes blinks uncontrollably in various geometrical patterns, but when i move the angle for a bit it stops - this is a known issue with hp laptops and i don't have the money for a new display). Is my hunch about the reason of this issue correct or are these errors unrelated and how would i resolve this? Would it be possible to tell the system what is the correct EDID - i only use one display.

Answer 1

There used to be an Option in the Device section of xorg.conf that you could set,
Option "IgnoreEDID" "TRUE". You could try creating a file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
with that option. The downside to that is that you might have to provide all the correct
EDID info yourself.
The nvidia proprietary driver's configuration allows you to ignore all or part of the EDID:
if you wish to disable the driver's use of the EDID, you can set this option to False:
        Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
    Note that, rather than globally disable all uses of the EDID, you can
    individually disable each particular use of the EDID; e.g.,
        Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "FALSE"
        Option "UseEDIDDpi" "FALSE"
        Option "ModeValidation" "NoEdidModes"
/usr/share/doc/nvidia/README
If you're feeling adventurous there is a utility to read/write EDIDs: https://github.com/bulletmark/edid-rw
but do note the WARNING there.