Hi Ilia,

As promised:

(> my hdminva3.patch should already be part of 3.11, so I'm surprised
 you didn't get a conflict of some sort when applying it.)

These are the steps I did then and reproduced now to answer your question.
(Note: today, the git state machine is right after the debug-3 failure on
 88e9e3d2deacc460fbb8a4691140318f6e85e6891)

[~/linux]$ git checkout master ; echo $?
error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by
checkout:
        drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/hdminv84.c
        drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/hdminva3.c
        drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/sornv50.c
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can switch branches.
Aborting
1

[~/linux]$ git checkout drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau ; echo $?
0
[~/linux]$ git checkout master ; echo $?
Checking out files: 100% (24444/24444), done.
Previous HEAD position was 8e9e3d2... drm/nv84/disp: move hdmi control into
coreSwitched to branch 'master'
0

[~/linux]$ patch -p1 < /home/alex/hdmi-1.patch ; echo $?
patching file drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/hdanva3.c
0
[~/linux]$ patch -p1 < /home/alex/hdminva3.patch ; echo $?
patching file drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/hdminva3.c
Reversed (or previously applied) patch detected!  Assume -R? [n]
Apply anyway? [n]
Skipping patch.
1 out of 1 hunk ignored -- saving rejects to file
drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/hdminva3.c.rej
1
[~/linux]$ patch -p1 < /home/alex/hdminva3-4.patch ; echo $?
patching file drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/hdminv84.c
patching file drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/hdminva3.c
0
[~/linux]$ patch -p1 < /home/alex/debug-3.patch ; echo $?
patching file drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/hdminva3.c
patching file drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/core/engine/disp/sornv50.c
patching file drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nv50_display.c
0

So basically I took the 'hdminva3.patch' skip in stride (then and now).
I agree, I should've mentioned this detail.  Hope it helps.

-- Alex