Screen Brightness on Battery Power (Jaunty 9.04)

Asked by New2Ubuntu

i'm running jaunty 9.04 on a samsung nc10 and have an issue whenever I use battery power. the screen brightness is just too dim and even when set at max is no where near the brightness I can attain when on AC power or battery when using Windows. Does anyone know how I can increase the screen brightness to a more acceptable (and useable) level.

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pablitofuerte (pablitofuerte) said :
#1

You have complete instructions on your help & support launcher.

Alt+F2 - copy&paste next line:

yelp file:///usr/share/gnome/help/gnome-power-manager/en/gnome-power-manager.xml

Read the preferences and applets sections.
You also have some info on this weblink: http://projects.gnome.org/gnome-power-manager/gpp.html

Hope that helps

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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#2

hi

thanks for the response. i can't pull up the help file however I have more info. i don't seem to have the brightness slider options when I click on the battery tab of power preferences. i have options for dim display and reduce backlight brightness. i have brightness slider for ac power though so maybe something is missing?

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pablitofuerte (pablitofuerte) said :
#3

The "brightness slider" is a gnome-panel applet and lets you change brightness at will. To add it; right-click on the gnome-panel and "Add panel..." Search it (I don't know how it is called because I use spanish language on my system, but I should be something like "Brightness mini-applet") then press the "Add" button an it will be place on your gnome-panel.

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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#4

hi i tried this and found the applet. the slider is set at 100% but still the screen display is too dull. i think there is another issue here. thanks for helping me

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pablitofuerte (pablitofuerte) said :
#5
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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#6

for some reason I do not have a brightness slider when I'm in power preferences on the battery tab?

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Kevin Hunter (hunteke) said :
#7

Brightness control could also be a hardware issue. For example, a BIOS setting. Check your BIOS (F2, F5, Del, or some key to let you enter the BIOS setup near-immediately after you've first turned on the computer).

Failing finding a solution, give us more information about your hardware. Make, model, output of 'lspci' (from the command line), that sort of thing.

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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#8

thanks for the email. i'll get back to you on the BIOS but not sure how to get the output of Ispci from the command line. i'm running jaunty 9.04 on a samsung nc10.

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Kevin Hunter (hunteke) said :
#9

Does that imply that you can't get to a command line, or just don't know how to copy/paste it?

Btw, the command is 'lspci', not 'ispci'. As in "List the PCI devices, please."

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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#10

hello, here's the output of lspci as requested. i still need to look at the BIOS

as an aside, do you know why in some apps particularly thunderbird I do not see all of the buttons on the screen. an example being the save button when I am in contacts. could this be a screen resolution issue (it's set at 1024*600) as when I'm in XP the text for my apps etc does look smaller and everything fits onto the screen where as running ubuntu text for the apps seems bigger. i know this may seem a bit odd but I've been trying to ages to get it set up and working right :)

output of lspci:

deanhall@ubuntu:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 13)
deanhall@ubuntu:~$

thanks for your help with this. much appreciated

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Kevin Hunter (hunteke) said :
#11

Hmm, a quick google with "945GME screen brightness", suggests that it *may* be a bug. However, I doubt it. My hunch is that it's a hardware setting in your BIOS. Once you log into your BIOS setup, there will hopefully be an option on one of the pages to let you set the battery brightness somewhere. So, solution suggestion: check your machine BIOS.

(Do you know how to get to the BIOS setup screen?)

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Kevin Hunter (hunteke) said :
#12

To answer your aside question: it's a QA issue. These kinds of cases historically just aren't looked at by open source developers. This actually came up recently in a "Why the Linux Desktop Ain't There Yet" article somewhere. (Of course now I can't find it!) A lot of it is polish in just these types of areas, where the developers assume some minimum piece of hardware, and never worry about how to handle odd-ball cases like that.

Though not the article I was referencing, here's another one that may be of interest:

http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.html

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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#13

thanks for helping me on this. in terms of accessing the bios i'm not sure on this. i'm dual booting at the moment with options for ubuntu and windows xp. i chose ubuntu and then hit esc to access the menu. this was not the bios menu though as I did not see anything that related to the screen brightness on battery. on windows I think it is the F8 command but I have not tried this yet. the screen brightness is perfectly fine in windows i.e. i have the option via the keyboard to have the same screen brightness as I would if I was on AC power. do you want me to access F8? in terms of the other issue I do agree that is an issue of tuning these apps as these little frustrations really do put people off from making the switch to linux. i'm ok to use the workarounds, I often back tab until I cannot see the cursor and hit return hoping it is on the save button!

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Kevin Hunter (hunteke) said :
#14

1. How to access BIOS: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/accessbios.htm

BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System. In other words, it is the *first* thing your computer sees. It is even before grub, even before "the F8 command".

2. The fact that at it's accessible through windows suggests a few things:
 - it's not broken (good!)
 - it's not a standard interface (bad!). Your copy Windows of windows likely came with a specific, vendor-supplied driver that covers this use-case.

Because of the latter (non-standard bit), until some developer gets around to figuring our *your specific hardware* type, you're likely out of luck. You can keep googling, but unless someone here knows the answer, I doubt you'll receive any "solved" solutions on this issue from this forum.

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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#15

hello. thanks for the link. i accessed BIOS using F2 for Samsung however there's nothing that controls screen brightness other than an option for auto or manual (meaning you can increase or decrease using the arrow keys). i looked for battery related options and there's nothing other than a smart battery which I dont think is the right thing here. maybe this is another one to put up with, however the brightness is so poor sometimes (bright light outside for example) if I'm working off battery power that I have to go back to XP :(. i think this is an issue with the OS as I dont have this issue with XP. the default on XP is low brightness but with the arrow keys there's scope on the 'slider' to increase the brightness to that of the AC power mode. in jaunty there just isn't that ability. the max setting on the slider just wont give that level of brightness. unless there's anything else you can suggest this can be closed down. your help has been much appreciated.

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Kevin Hunter (hunteke) said :
#16

I don't know how to close this as other than solved.

Anyone watching this thread: is this bug report material?

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wojox (wojox) said :
#17

I found this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NC10

Fn+ESC suspend or hibernate
Fn+F2 battery status
Fn+F4 ** haven't checked yet **
Fn+F6 mute on/off
Fn+F10 activate/deactivate touchpad
Fn+F11 numeric key pad
Fn+Up increase brightness
Fn+Down decrease brighness

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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#18

yep, i only have an option to close it as solver which is not right really. however I have discovered that samsung nc10 have a hidden intel tab in the bios screen.

see below. i'll have a look to see what this offers but dont think it's the answer

*****After entering the NC10 BIOS page (by tapping F2 at boot) it is possible to unlock further advanced options that are initially hidden from the user. These options appear under a new tab called 'Intel' and include CPU control, MCH control, Video control, ICH control and ACPI control each containing advanced settings that should not be changed without doing research first****

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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#19

bit more of an update here. i found the following

****1) Reboot your computer, interrupting startup with F2 just after the computer turns on (you have to be quit). Set screen brightness control to user controlled instead of automatic.

2) Turn up the brightness all the while in the GRUB screen at boot. After that point you won’t be able to raise the maximum any higher*** at http://nc10linux.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/max-brightness/ suggesting this is a known issue

i've changed the brightness to user controlled but I'm not sure what to do with respect to point 2, grub screen at boot?? is this the menu screen you access when hitting ESC after selecting ubuntu from the OS choices or is this screen something different

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New2Ubuntu (homegrownchillies) said :
#20

following on from that thread in the last link I sent I've now gone into gconf-editor and changed the backlight value in apps\gnome power manager. it was set at 70 and I've set it to 100 which is the same value for AC power. i've disconnected my power supply on reboot (as there is already a known issue with the power on resume for NC10's) and I have normal screen brightness. the FN and arrow keys NOW give me the ability to increase the brightness on the slider to a more acceptable level! great. I'm very happy and would like to thankyou for all of your help. i do have another niggle that relates to the microphone on nc10 but I'll raise another email on this and close this one down!