Cannot establish maximum resolution on ASUS PB278Q

Question

I've recently bought brand new ASUS PB278Q monitor.
When trying to connect to my laptop, everything works great, except that I can't get the native resolution of my monitor (2560x1440) working. The automatic is 1920x1080.
My graphic card is Nvidia GeForce 320m.
Here's output from lspci for it:

~$ lspci | grep VGA
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT216M [GeForce GT 320M] (rev a2)

and also xrandr:

~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 3286 x 1437, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS-0 connected primary 1366x768+0+669 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm
   1366x768       60.0*+
HDMI-0 connected 1920x1080+1366+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 600mm x 340mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+   59.9     50.0     30.0     25.0     24.0     60.0     50.0  
   1680x1050      60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1280x800       59.8  
   1280x720       60.0     59.9     50.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1024x768       75.0     70.1     60.0  
   800x600        75.0     72.2     60.3     56.2  
   720x576        50.0  
   720x480        59.9  
   640x480        75.0     59.9     59.9  
   480x576        50.0  
   480x480        59.9  

I have proprietary drivers installed on my machine, here's the info about the monitor from nvidia-settings (Actually I don't have enough reputation to post images, so here's the text):

Chip Location: Internal
Signal: TDMS
Connection link: Single
Native resolution: 2560x1440
Refresh rate: 60.00 Hz

The monitor is connected to laptop via HDMI cable, and honestly I have no idea what version it is, and what version is my HDMI output of my graphics card. I tried to find how I can figure it out on the web, but had no luck. Also my video card has only VGA and HDMI outs so I can't test neither DVI-D cable nor DisplayPort.

So apparently, there's some problem over there. At least I want to know exactly what's going on. I've tried to see if it a linux-specific problem, but windows also gave me the same resolution by default.

What I've already tried:

1. Connect through VGA (stupid one, of course it gave me 1920x1080).
2. Checked two HDMI cables (not sure if they're the same or not, as mentioned above).
3. Played around with xrandr and adding custom modes. Didn't help.
4. Surfed for the info a lot on the web, but couldn't get appropriate results.

Actually xrandr gives me the following:

~$ cvt 2560 1440 60
# 2560x1440 59.96 Hz (CVT 3.69M9) hsync: 89.52 kHz; pclk: 312.25 MHz
Modeline "2560x1440_60.00"  312.25  2560 2752 3024 3488  1440 1443 1448 1493 -hsync +vsync
~$ xrandr --newmode "2560x1440_60.00"  312.25  2560 2752 3024 3488  1440 1443 1448 1493 -hsync +vsync
~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 3286 x 1437, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS-0 connected 1366x768+0+669 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm
   1366x768       60.0*+
HDMI-0 connected primary 1920x1080+1366+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 600mm x 340mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+   59.9     50.0     30.0     25.0     24.0     60.0     50.0  
   1680x1050      60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1280x800       59.8  
   1280x720       60.0     59.9     50.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1024x768       75.0     70.1     60.0  
   800x600        75.0     72.2     60.3     56.2  
   720x576        50.0  
   720x480        59.9  
   640x480        75.0     59.9     59.9  
   480x576        50.0  
   480x480        59.9  
  2560x1440_60.00 (0x34f)  312.2MHz
        h: width  2560 start 2752 end 3024 total 3488 skew    0 clock   89.5KHz
        v: height 1440 start 1443 end 1448 total 1493           clock   60.0Hz
~$ xrandr --addmode HDMI-0 2560x1440_60.00
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:  29
  Current serial number in output stream:  30

What I intend to do next:

1. Try another HDMI cable?
2. Try HDMI to DVI-D cable?
3. Try HDMI to DisplayPort cable?
4. Another type of adapters? VGA to DVI-D?
5. Buy another laptop with another graphic card. Damn.
6. My ideas pretty much end here.

Any ideas?
Any explanations why it isn't working are appreciated.

EDIT:
I've managed to make it work through HDMI to DVI-D cable on Windows 8, by setting custom resolution in nvidia settings manager.
Although monitor outputs that bad cable connected frequently (it sais that it needs Dual-link for that), the high resolution is actually set.
My attempts to set custom resolution with xrandr failed with the same error as above.

Solution

This is how I got my ASUS PB278Q to work: In the terminal:

$ cvt -v 2560 1440 40

2560x1440 39.96 Hz (CVT) hsync: 58.98 kHz; pclk: 201.00 MHz
Modeline "2560x1440_40.00"  201.00  2560 2720 2984 3408  1440 1443 1448 1476 -hsync +vsync

$ xrandr --newmode "2560x1440_40.00"  201.00  2560 2720 2984 3408  1440 1443 1448 1476 -hsync +vsync

$ xrandr --addmode HDMI1 "2560x1440_40.00"

Comments

[MadMike]

While the question is a bit older. This answer might help.

[dentuzhik]

I have listed the output what happens when doing this way. See it in question body.

[JeffH]

Running into the same problem here, in my case with two of these monitors. They work fine in windows but the HDMI monitor is stuck in 1920x1080 on ubuntu 14.04. Did you ever find a solution?

[dentuzhik]

Nope. I've established max resolution on windows using regular HDMI cable, but had no luck on Ubuntu. After upgrading to 14.04 nothing changed, although I haven't tried to do all the steps above once again. The idea that I've came out after all this struggle, that due to badly written drivers for Linux, the limit is set on transfer data through HDMI. I've tried to remove this limit, but then I was able to see refresh of the screen at max resolution, wave was coming from left to right. The only thing we can do is wait for someone to fix drivers, or buy Intel video card.

[dentuzhik]

Nope, it doesn't. Actually I've figured out myself what was the problem, and I'm quite sure it can't be solved now. It's Nvidia drivers limit, so that's why it actually works for your graphics card and doesn't work for mine.

[reedstrm]

This worked for me, cut&paste