Hello, I'm Linux-Newbie and I tried with a friends for weeks already to get Debian Sarge working on my HP Compaq NX 9105 (same as Compaq R3000z). It has a 15,4" WXGA Display with 1280x800 pixels and a 60Hz refreshment rate. The graphics adapter is a Nvidia Geforce 440 Go, I use the 2.6.9 kernel with the latest nvidia-driver (669 or something.).
When starting Gnome or KDE, the display starts like a splitscreen (funny thing, that... ) or with weird colours and stuff...
I already looked for a whole lot of xfree86-configs, so I don't post mine, I believe that just the right adjustment of the settings will help, but I wasn't able to find the technical data of the display or a working xfree-config, I also tried a modeline-generator, but that didn't help either.
May be someone can help me get the graphics working, some Gnome would be nice :-) ...

bye
Nils

go add the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia*

"options nvidia NVreg_Mobile=0" (no quotes)

reboot. . . or uninstert/ reinsert your nvidia module

I had the same problem, to fix it I updated the BIOS to F.34 and then reinstalled Linux. Since I am using SuSE I used the YAST Online Updater to update the files.
I belive my problem started when I recompiled the Kernel with v.10 source after updating to .11

So my fix was
1) Update the BIOS to F.34
2) Apply a "redmond" fix... Delete and reinstall.

Hope this helps.