NVIDIA Driver black screen on Linux

Question

Upon trying to install ANY form of Linux (tried Ubuntu 13.04, Mint 15 Cinnamon, Fedora 18 KDE), I have a few problems:

First off, I get EXTREME lag in both of their Live CDs. It starts to completely hang for minutes at a time, and then eventually the screen goes black and never displays anything again.

Here are my specs:

ASUS P8P67 Pro Rev 3.1 Motherboard (Latest BIOS 8/6/2013)
Intel i7 2600K Processor
128GB OCZ SOLID3 SSD (Latest FW 8/6/2013)
1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM HDD
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580
Yamakasi Catleap Q270 (2560x1440 @ 60Hz) via Dual-Link DVI

Secondly: I've been able to get the Operating System installed (somehow, one of Ubuntu's liveCD options as well as Fedora KDE I can make it through without lag) but then when I do install, I have to install the nvidia driver ASAP through terminal, or I get the extreme lag again. Once I install the driver, however, I just get a black screen upon reboot.

If this question is a duplicate and I missed it, please let me know and I will be happy to remove it.

I believe the problem lies with the Graphics driver, card, or my monitor itself. My problem happens even in an installed version of Linux/Ubuntu, not just the live CD. I've tried getting the nvidia driver and following a plethora of guides on this site, but they all lead in me getting a black screen on bootup and having to Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get a terminal. If anyone has any suggestions or anything, I'd greatly apperciate it.

I'm aware of two open issues with my graphics card for Ubuntu(Nouveau) specifically: 1 and 2, but the workarounds do NOT work for me. And also, the nvidia driver is unrelated to these - installing it is actually the suggested workaround, which in fact makes my problem worse.

Answer 1

After weeks and weeks of messing around, I was finally able to figure out my problem! It was, in fact, the monitor.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2038997

I followed the guide here and manually edited my xorg.conf file, and now everything works perfectly!

Adding the content here just in case the forums get archived:

# This section defines the Catleap (HiRes) monitor.  
# I just left this section completely the same as in the example
#

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Shimian"
    ModelName      "QHD270"
    HorizSync      88.8
    VertRefresh    59.5
    Option         "DPMS"
    Modeline       "2560x1440" 241.50  2560 2608 2640 2720  1440 1443 1448 1481 +hsync -vsync
    DisplaySize    597 336  
EndSection

#
# This section defines the video card, I didn't change anything here either
#
Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GTX 460"
EndSection

# This is the section I changed
#
# The BIGGEST issue I had, was figuring out what was on DFP-0, DFP-1 and DFP-2 (which are the dvi/hdmi outputs)
# In MY system, DFP-0 is the "primary" DVI output
# and DFP-1 is the mini-HDMI output
# and DFP-2 is the 2ndary DVI output
# So I want my Catleap on DVI-0 and the Asus twinview monitor on the DFP-2 (so I had to change my cables)
#
Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "NoLogo" "True"
    Option         "TwinView" "1"
# Leave this as DFP-0, which is where the Catleap(hires) monitor is plugged into.
# This (I believe) tells the system what the "primary" display is in the twin view
    Option         "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
    Option         "UseEDID" "False"
    Option         "UseEDIDDPI" "False"
    Option         "UseEDIDFreqs" "False"
    Option         "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "True"
# This is the only other line I had to change from the example
# DFP-0: 2560x1440_60 +0 +0   <--- This line is the "primary" display on DFP-0 (the Catleap HiRes)
# DFP-2: 1920x1080 +2560 +0   <--- This was for the 2nd monitor, resolution and offset.
# Don't forget the comma between the two monitors
    Option         "metamodes" "DFP-0: 2560x1440_60 +0 +0, DFP-2: 1920x1080 +2560+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection