Try updating your Bios (my Asus let me do that simply enough.) I was looking around the www.linux-on-laptops.com links for inspiration on this problem and apparently the Bios limits video memory (on Asus anyway.) Updated BIOS and I get 1024x768 with good colour depth and no display issues as I described previously - all from automatically probed settings.

It's just a case of convincing my soundcard to work properly now (KDE loves it, but the XMM media player doesn't...)

Kiwi