[FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

Him · 2011-02-27 18:14:46

Hi all.

I recently replaced the screen on my Toshiba Satellite, as it had a large crack in it. Thing is, the new screen is WAY too bright. What was once white is now a blinding light, and what was once pitch black is now a light grey. The battery life has been affected as well.
So far, with this laptop, it's been an uphill battle. The keyboard, although it has a brightness Fn key, hasn't been recognized by any distro I use, much less Arch. So keybindings are out the question. I have laptop-mode-tools installed, but there isn't a "video" folder in "/proc/acpi". The "/sys/class/backlight/" folder is empty as well.

Anything anyone can offer on this problem would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I've tried using xbacklight, but I get

 xbacklight -set 50                                                                                                                                                                      
No outputs have backlight property

Last edited by Him (2011-03-05 17:50:30)

lagagnon · 2011-03-02 21:13:52

You might want to google around to see if the "fnfx" modules will work with that model of Toshiba. They might help your problem.

Him · 2011-03-02 22:15:02

Strange, when I call for fnfxd to run, I get:

FnFX Daemon v0.3 (c) 2003, 2004 Timo Hoenig <thoenig@nouse.net>

fatal error: Could open /proc/acpi/toshiba/keys.

Please make sure that your kernel has enabled the Toshiba option in the ACPI section.
For more information read the documentation and/or http://fnfx.sf.net/index.php?section=doc#kernel.

Sure enough, there's not a "toshiba" folder in /proc/acpi. How would I check whether or not my kernel has the toshiba option enabled?

Last edited by Him (2011-03-02 22:21:14)

ewaller · 2011-03-02 22:25:40

A long time ago I had a Toshiba. IIRC it was an M45. I was a Gentoo user at the time.

http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=199861 Is a link to a bug report in which I published an EBUILD (The Gentoo Equivilant of PKGBUILD)

This created a module called toshiba_smi and allows for control of the SMI bus (which includes the backlight). I really don't know what the current status is of this project -- That laptop died or horrible, smoky death. (Battery Meltdown).

Edit: BTW, if you get this to work, I wrote a GUI front end for it in Qt.

Last edited by ewaller (2011-03-02 22:28:38)

ewaller · 2011-03-02 22:37:33

Replying to myself -- bad form. I just checked, and the source is no longer hosted. As it so happens, I still have a copy

If you want to give it a try, let me know and I'll get you a copy. Its GPL

Him · 2011-03-02 22:46:31

ewaller: That'd really be great, thanks.

How hard would it be to install it? Just "make" and "make install", or is it a bit more than that?

ewaller · 2011-03-02 23:03:26

Him wrote:

...How hard would it be to install it? Just "make" and "make install", or is it a bit more than that?

That is pretty much it. It is a single .c file, a README file, and a Makefile. Let me try to compile it when I get home to see how it goes. I'll tar it up and send you a copy by email to the link in your profile. You will need to compile it for your system. I'm pretty sure a module compiled on my system won't fly on yours.

Edit: No, actually. I recall it is built as a kernel module and was built by slipping it into the kernel tree. Not that tough. I'll throw together some notes.

Last edited by ewaller (2011-03-02 23:06:33)

ewaller · 2011-03-02 23:47:41

It won't compile Yet. There are dependencies on the 'owner' field in the proc_dir_entry structure -- A field that has been depreciated and removed in recent kernels. I'll see what I can do tonight.

ewaller · 2011-03-04 05:59:36

Can you verify your processor type?

IIRC, My M45 was a i686 (x86 architecture) single core system.

I just commented out lines that assigned the owner field in that structure. That got me past the C code, but then there was some in-line assembly code that is x86 specific that just will not assemble on this Core 2 Dual core (X86_64) system. I could keep pushing on, but it would be pointless to get the SM bus code to compile on a system that has no SM bus. Likewise, it won't run on a X86 system that has a SM bus.

I'd still be happy to provide it in its current state and some suggestions on how to compile it. I think it might work on your system if it is x86.

Him · 2011-03-05 00:57:41

I'm running a Pentium M processor, x86, i686.

ewaller · 2011-03-05 02:46:08

Him wrote:

I'm running a Pentium M processor, x86, i686.

Okay, that is good. I'll pack this up and send it off shortly...

Him · 2011-03-05 17:50:17

Thanks for all the help ewaller. You gave me the idea to check dmesg, which showed something about BIOS setting battery conservation. When I check the BIOS, it has the screen set to "Super-Bright". Now, all is well again. Thank-you.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-02-27 18:14:46

[FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#2 2011-03-02 21:13:52

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#3 2011-03-02 22:15:02

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#4 2011-03-02 22:25:40

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#5 2011-03-02 22:37:33

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#6 2011-03-02 22:46:31

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#7 2011-03-02 23:03:26

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#8 2011-03-02 23:47:41

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#9 2011-03-04 05:59:36

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#10 2011-03-05 00:57:41

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#11 2011-03-05 02:46:08

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

#12 2011-03-05 17:50:17

Re: [FIXED]Toshiba Satellite m45-s359 brightness issue

Board footer