On Tue, Feb 01, 2011 at 01:16:30PM -0800, Steven Rosenberg wrote:
On 01/31/2011 11:30 PM, Remco Rijnders wrote:
Hi,
Yesterday I upgraded my Samsung netbook running Squeeze. I got all
updates released for installed packages since last thursday. After this
upgrade, my desktop in X looks very dark as if the backlight is not on
or strongly dimmed. I do not recall making any changes to my setup that
would have caused this other than upgrading those packages above.
Unfortunately I have no idea where to start to fix this issue. Any
pointers on where to look or commands to try?
I've had the backlight fail on three laptops in the past year (I have
a LOT of near-dead laptops; they don't last forever, that's for sure).
It was hardware every time (two LCD inverters, one bad power brick).
Are you sure it's software and not hardware failure?
Hi Steven,
Thanks for responding to my call for help.
Pretty sure it's software... though it might be hardware related even
when it's not hardware failure. The BIOS and Grub screen show in full
brightness.
That said, the problem is "fixed" for now. When I installed on monday
night, I had my netbook at home and ran it withouth the adapter plugged
in. While the backlight was on then, some sort of energy saving must
have kicked in that turned the backlight off when I resumed it from
sleep yesterday morning. I see no setting to control this anywhere and
having googled further, this seems to be a common problem with Samsung
netbooks. Some suggestions are offered, and I'll look into these next.
Shutting the netbook down intsead of pausing or sleeping it is what did
the trick in the end. When I booted back on with the power plugged in,
the backlight was on again (pheew, I wouldn't like to have it die on me
after just one month).
If so, what happens when you try to increase the backlight brightness
in the settings?
If you're running GNOME, you can adjust brightness via System -
Preferences - Power Management with the "Set Display Brightness to"
slider. Does that do anything?
"Funny" enough, I see no such slider and this might provide a clue in
solving this issue permanently for me.
Thanks again for your help and suggestions.
Sincerely,
Remco