Arch Linux

mamamia88

Member

Registered: 2012-08-29

Posts: 483

Brightness is Static on External Monitor

I'm running arch on my netbook connected to an external monitor.  It works great except for one tiny problem.   The brightness applet in xfce controls only the brightness on the netbook display and the display on the external monitor doesn't seem to dim at all.  Anyone know of a workaround for this? Btw I'm using xrandr commands disabling and enabling monitor and have them set to execute on startup if that helps at all

hiciu

Member

Registered: 2010-08-11

Posts: 84

Re: Brightness is Static on External Monitor

Check https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backlight. It can be tricky; i'm not even sure if it is possible to control brightness on external monitor. Do you use ati, nvidia, intel? With which driver? (nvidia-settings tool can control brightness but I don't know how well it works)

mamamia88

Member

Registered: 2012-08-29

Posts: 483

Re: Brightness is Static on External Monitor

Check https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backlight. It can be tricky; i'm not even sure if it is possible to control brightness on external monitor. Do you use ati, nvidia, intel? With which driver? (nvidia-settings tool can control brightness but I don't know how well it works)

it's an intel chip using xf86-intel i'll look into that link thanks.   might not even be worth it

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,808

Re: Brightness is Static on External Monitor

This is pretty much the behavior I would expect.  On a LCD display, they video signals control the LCD shutters to be fully closed, fully open, or somewhere in between.  This is controlled by the stuff going across the video cable.  Then, there is the backlight level.  In general,. to control that requires a separate cable -- like a USB cable.  Some monitors use a USB connection for control, and then also provide a USB hub so you can plug things like mice or thumb drives into your monitor rather than the computer.   Does this monitor have a USB connection by chance?

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mamamia88

Member

Registered: 2012-08-29

Posts: 483

Re: Brightness is Static on External Monitor

This is pretty much the behavior I would expect.  On a LCD display, they video signals control the LCD shutters to be fully closed, fully open, or somewhere in between.  This is controlled by the stuff going across the video cable.  Then, there is the backlight level.  In general,. to control that requires a separate cable -- like a USB cable.  Some monitors use a USB connection for control, and then also provide a USB hub so you can plug things like mice or thumb drives into your monitor rather than the computer.   Does this monitor have a USB connection by chance?

nope vga only. tried the ACPI,xbacklight,and xcalib methods all of which only effect the netbook

Last edited by mamamia88 (2012-11-14 05:42:14)