[SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

kennym · 2011-09-04 16:16:14

The screen of my laptop goes black whenever I boot into ArchLinux, after "reading Udev events" on startup. Most of the time I have to use a flashlight to see the console on my screen and type

sudo setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=20

to set screen brightness manually. The `Fn` + `Brightness up` combination doesn't work on my machine, but that's not an issue with Arch, but fault to sugar in coffee.

There are a lot of similar threads in this forum, but none of the solutions described there really worked 100% or not at all, that's why I'm opening a new thread as this seems to be specific to my hardware.

Details:

Graphics controller:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)

Screen resolution:
1366*766

/boot/grub/menu.lst:

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda10 resume=/dev/sda5 ro vga=775
initrd /initramfs-linux.img

/etc/rc.conf#DAEMONS:

DAEMONS=(hwclock syslog-ng network netfs crond laptop-mode dbus gdm)

I will describe here what I have did so far on hacking:

Installed the video driver for my Intel card as described here in the wiki
Set kernel mode to `nomodeset`, without specifying vga, of course, which surprisingly solved the issue, but prevented me from using Gnome.
The supposed solution in the Arch wiki doesn't work for me. It makes it worse, in the sense of dumping screen brightness even before "reading udev events" on boot.

My current workaround (to avoid using a flashlight) is to put this line into my `/etc/rc.local`:

 setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=20

I wonder if you can help me to solve this issue, or point me to any of the great documentation provided by the Arch community I might have missed...

Last edited by kennym (2011-09-06 16:03:58)

rg_arc · 2011-09-05 10:25:53

I have this problem as well for my Acer Aspire 4810TZ. The only thing I can think of is to make some sort of temporary fix. But I agree with you, There should be a permanent fix. Every time I've installed Arch on this computer the same problem arises and the only way I can change the brightness is the setpci terminal method.

kennym · 2011-09-05 16:04:39

rg_arc wrote:

I have this problem as well for my Acer Aspire 4810TZ. The only thing I can think of is to make some sort of temporary fix. But I agree with you, There should be a permanent fix. Every time I've installed Arch on this computer the same problem arises and the only way I can change the brightness is the setpci terminal method.

This is bad news for new Arch (and Linux) users. This will be probably the point where they will turn over to another distribution.

It seems to be something which has been included in newer kernels, because I can remember that in the 2.6 series this issue did not exist.

Last edited by kennym (2011-09-05 16:05:08)

.:B:. · 2011-09-05 16:11:46

Technically, the 3.x series is just a rebadged 2.6.x ...

moetunes · 2011-09-06 10:16:55

Try taking the vga=775 from the end of the kernel line as intel uses kms by default.
Cheers

rg_arc · 2011-09-06 11:25:48

I didn't have vga=775 from the start, and this is still giving me trouble.

kennym · 2011-09-06 15:44:14

moetunes wrote:

Try taking the vga=775 from the end of the kernel line as intel uses kms by default.
Cheers

Still the same issue..

kennym · 2011-09-06 16:03:25

This post was a solution to the problem.

It says:

Going to guess that you've got Intel graphics on there. If that's the case, you've got two options (currently):
1) add "i915.modeset=0" to your kernel options. This may, however, result in a hard crash on starting X.
2) Roll back to 2.6.31.6
The root cause is that DRM is crashing. I've got this issue on my Dell laptop, and I haven't yet been able to find a fix -- same result with newer kernels and newer libdrm/xf86-video-intel.

I've done both, and now it works, but this is very disappointing...

rg_arc · 2011-09-06 16:09:08

I am tempted to try... but I don't want a crash.. and I don't feel like rolling back unless I really have to

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-04 16:16:14

[SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

#2 2011-09-05 10:25:53

Re: [SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

#3 2011-09-05 16:04:39

Re: [SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

#4 2011-09-05 16:11:46

Re: [SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

#5 2011-09-06 10:16:55

Re: [SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

#6 2011-09-06 11:25:48

Re: [SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

#7 2011-09-06 15:44:14

Re: [SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

#8 2011-09-06 16:03:25

Re: [SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

#9 2011-09-06 16:09:08

Re: [SOLVED] Screen brightness issues with Acer 5372Z

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