Arch Linux

kyeana

Member

Registered: 2010-01-26

Posts: 36

[SOLVED] Trouble increasing backlight

When arch starts (boot, grub, and before it enters run level 3 if i remember right) the screen is at full brightness. However, after runlevel three (i think, not 100% sure) my font gets significantly smaller and the screen goes very dim.

I can use the fn+f6 to increase the brightness, but it will never go back to max brights, it caps at around 3/4's of the brightness prior to run level 3.

I have tried using laptop-mode-tools to force the brightness higher. $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VID/LCD/brightness returns current 30 and max 36, so i set my lcd-brightness.conf accordingly

#
# Should laptop mode tools control LCD brightness?
#
CONTROL_BRIGHTNESS=1

#
# Commands to execute to set the brightness on your LCD
#
BATT_BRIGHTNESS_COMMAND="echo 36"
LM_AC_BRIGHTNESS_COMMAND="echo 36"
NOLM_AC_BRIGHTNESS_COMMAND="echo 36"
BRIGHTNESS_OUTPUT="/proc/acpi/video/VID/LCD/brightness"

and i have insured that laptop-mode.conf is set to be active and the daemon is in rc.conf, but when i restart the computer it still lowers the brightness. I have also ran cat /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode and gotten 2 as a result, which according to the laptop-mode-tools faq means that laptop-mode-tools is running.

Anyone have any ideas why this isn't working, or any other way that i could get my brightness up?

Oh one other thing, it was working fine on the .28 kernel, but when i upgraded to the .32 kernel it stopped working. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Edit: forgot to mention im running an ASUS 1001p, which uses the Pineview gpu. Im using the xf86-video-intel-newest (v2.10 from AUR) as the gpu driver.

Last edited by kyeana (2010-02-06 00:31:16)

lagagnon

Member

From: an Island in the Pacific...

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 1,087

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble increasing backlight

Have you tried using the command "xbacklight" instead? Might be a lot easier...

---

Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.

kyeana

Member

Registered: 2010-01-26

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble increasing backlight

It's a command?!?!? Ga i feel stupid. I saw it in some other posts and did multiple searches through pacman and the AUR and coulnd't find it. I just assumed it was old no longer applicable lol.

Anyways, i messed around with it a bit, and it is kind of weird. If i set it to 100% it is significantly dimmer then if i set it to 75, and if i set it to 80% it is pitch black?

Any ideas?

brando56894

Member

From: NYC

Registered: 2008-08-03

Posts: 681

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble increasing backlight

that is odd I have a 1005HA and ive had problems with my backlight too where no matter what I did it would still dim when on batter power. I never did get it figured out.

kyeana

Member

Registered: 2010-01-26

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble increasing backlight

That doesn't bode well....

I did find a bios update on the ASUS website, perhaps i will give that a shot...

kyeana

Member

Registered: 2010-01-26

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Trouble increasing backlight

Ha!!

Curtisoty of this forum:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=42279

"setpci -s 00:02.0 f4.b=ff"

and we have full brightness!!!

EDIT:
put "setpci -s 00:02.0 f4.b=ff" in /etc/rc.local, and xbacklight -set 75 (because for some reason that is brighter then 100) in .xinitrc and we are up and running. This sets it to max brightness when loading x (on the 1001p), and from from there you can turn it down if you need to using the normal fn f5 combo

Last edited by kyeana (2010-02-06 00:31:01)