[Solved]Brightness control doesn`t work anymore

Question

Hi!
I`ve made my 3rd update of Arch since installation, and... where previous two succeeded, the third one failed. It messed up my system
The problem is, i cannot change brightness any more through my function keys (and since i`m using Openbox as my DE, i cannot change it at all ). The brightness now is so low that i can barely see what i am typing. And it is not only in my Arch, it also messed up Windows and everything else: grub, bootup screen where i can select bios properties - everything.  I ran xev and now i see that FN+Right/Left are not detected anymore as brightness keys. It says:
FocusOut event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
mode NotifyGrab, detail NotifyAncestor
FocusIn event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
mode NotifyUngrab, detail NotifyAncestor
KeymapNotify event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x0,
keys: 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
However, FN + Win + Right/Left are now detected as brightness control function keys
KeyRelease event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
root 0x13c, subw 0x0, time 521221, (348,-43), root:(1219,884),
state 0x40, keycode 233 (keysym 0x1008ff02, XF86MonBrightnessUp), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False
But pressing them doesn`t work either. I thought that it was xfce4-power-manager problem, but changing to gnome-power-manager didn`t help either.During the update pacman also upgraded kernel to latest version.
Any ideas?
P.S. My notebook is Acer Aspire 7720g with Nvidia 8600M GT. I tried solutions from this topic: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=73889 but none worked for me... The problem is that the system is completely unusable at this point, since i barely see anything on the monitor, and that sucks
Last edited by K0tuk (2009-06-27 08:02:56)

Answer 1

I can't see what you did in Arch affecting your windows installation at all.  If you try to boot into windows and increase the brightness (since most laptops store the brightness level of the laptop as it was set, on battery, at least my 2 laptops do), does the new brightness level "stick" for all things?  If so, the only issue you have is to re-map the function keys properly, and to configure a script or something to increase/decrease lcd brightness.  You can make a simple script that echoes a value into your /proc/acpi/video/LCD/brightness file (the file path will vary, so it may be under UVGA or so).  If, however, it doesn't increase again, it may very well be a hardware issue, and not a software (since, as I said above, it's highly unlikely that an Arch update has affected Windows in any way).
Last edited by lswest (2009-06-26 12:28:04)