Brightness control sudenly stoped working properly

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starflower

Brightness control sudenly stoped working properly

Post by starflower »

Until today the brightness control, i.e. "Fn" + right/left arrow key's controled the brightness smoothly. And a neat little slider on the screen indicating brightness level.

Then today for no reason somethings happened. Essentially when I try to go up or down in brightness the control and response is erratic and flickers. It does still control it to a degree but it flickers and several key pushes are needed to get any change. The slider looks jumpy and crude.
Also sometimes when pushing the up key the brightness actually decreases for a couple of segments before resuming. Strange....

Booting from the Live USB and it works fine

This happened suddenly and for no reason. Any idea where to start looking??????

My system. Mint 17.2 Xfce on an Acer Travlemate P243M laptop

Thanks
Kate
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Pjotr
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Re: Brightness control sudenly stoped working properly

Post by Pjotr »

Please generate an overview of your system like this:
- Launch a terminal window (this is how to launch a terminal window);
- make the terminal window fullscreen, in order to avoid chopped lines;
- copy/paste this command into the terminal (copy/paste can be done with your mouse):

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz
if you type: the letter F is a capital letter

Press Enter.

Copy/paste the output in your next message.
Tip: 10 things to do after installing Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia
Keep your Linux Mint healthy: Avoid these 10 fatal mistakes
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starflower

Re: Brightness control sudenly stoped working properly

Post by starflower »

Thanks Pjotr!

Code: Select all

cbdb@laptop ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: laptop Kernel: 3.16.0-38-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2) 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.12.2 (Gtk 2.24.23) Distro: Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela
Machine:   System: Acer product: TravelMate P243-M version: V2.18
           Mobo: Acer model: BA40_HC version: Type2 - A01 Board Version Bios: Insyde version: V2.18 date: 04/19/2013
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i3-3110M CPU (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 9578.96 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 1763.437 MHz 2: 1841.156 MHz 3: 1374.750 MHz 4: 1205.437 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0 
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1360x768@59.8hz 
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card: Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.16.0-38-generic
Network:   Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR9462 Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath9k bus-ID: 09:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller 
           driver: r8169 ver: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 2000 bus-ID: 04:00.2
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (2.9% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD5000LPVX size: 500.1GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 184G used: 14G (8%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 1.02GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
RAID:      No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A 
Info:      Processes: 189 Uptime: 59 min Memory: 615.4/3766.2MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4 
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.11) inxi: 1.9.17 
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Re: Brightness control sudenly stoped working properly

Post by Pjotr »

Might be a driver issue. First try this easy generic solution:

Install the latest kernel from the 3.16 series:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... el-updates
(item 3, right column)

Then reboot.

If that doesn't help, upgrade to 17.3, "in place", by means of Update Manager: Edit - Upgrade to Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa.
Tip: 10 things to do after installing Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia
Keep your Linux Mint healthy: Avoid these 10 fatal mistakes
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All in all, horse sense simply makes sense.
starflower

Re: Brightness control sudenly stoped working properly

Post by starflower »

Thanks,

Well I installed the latest kernel 3.16.0-59 but the result is the same!


However, I am a little mystified as to why this should suddenly happen after working perfectly for several months after installation?
starflower

Re: Brightness control sudenly stoped working properly

Post by starflower »

Does anyone have any more thoughts on this?

I tried the Live USB and all is OK. So I'm wondering if there's a profile or other file thats got corrupted? or something else broken?

Kate
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Re: Brightness control sudenly stoped working properly

Post by Pjotr »

Create a new user account, log in as that new user, don't change any setting: does brightness control work in that new account?
Tip: 10 things to do after installing Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia
Keep your Linux Mint healthy: Avoid these 10 fatal mistakes
Twitter: twitter.com/easylinuxtips
All in all, horse sense simply makes sense.
starflower

Re: Brightness control sudenly stoped working properly

Post by starflower »

Pjotr wrote:Create a new user account, log in as that new user, don't change any setting: does brightness control work in that new account?
No that didn't help. The problem is still there.

Now I think about it this all started the day. I had been viewing a website which had some strange script running. Eventually it crashed my PC. When I rebooted I found that it had removed Addblock Plus from Firefox! So I reinstalled Addblock again. It was after this that my backlight control stopped working properly.
I don't know if they are related?
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