Bug 38342 - [Ironlake LVDS Vaio-Y i915] Backlight controls ineffective
Summary: [Ironlake LVDS Vaio-Y i915] Backlight controls ineffective
Status: CLOSED INSUFFICIENT_DATA
Alias: None
Product: ACPI
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Power-Video (show other bugs)
Hardware: All Linux
: P1 normal
Assignee: acpi_power-video
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2011-06-27 09:54 UTC by Michel Alexandre Salim
Modified: 2012-05-24 08:00 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Kernel Version: 3.0-rc4
Subsystem:
Regression: No
Bisected commit-id:


Attachments
lspci -vv (36.05 KB, text/plain)
2011-06-27 21:20 UTC, Michel Alexandre Salim
Details
Disassembled DSDT (361.17 KB, text/x-dsl)
2011-06-27 21:24 UTC, Michel Alexandre Salim
Details
dmesg changes from setting brightness (892 bytes, text/plain)
2011-06-27 21:34 UTC, Michel Alexandre Salim
Details
dmesg changes from issuing setpci command (616 bytes, text/plain)
2011-06-27 21:43 UTC, Michel Alexandre Salim
Details
mjg's i915 native GPU backlight control patch from linux-next (7.23 KB, patch)
2011-07-13 13:01 UTC, Michel Alexandre Salim
Details | Diff

Description Michel Alexandre Salim 2011-06-27 09:54:51 UTC
lspci -vv

Description of problem:
On my Sony Vaio Y, backlight controls are not operative, draining battery life.

System environment: 
-- chipset: Arrandale Core i5 430UM, Ironlake integrated graphics.
            (see lspci output)
-- Machine or mobo model: Sony Vaio VPC-Y2190X
-- Display connector: LVDS (see xrandr output)

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
upstream kernel 3.0 rc4 (using the same config as Fedora's 3.0-0.rc4.git3.1)
and also:
kernel-2.6.38.8-32.fc15.x86_64
kernel-3.0-0.rc4.git3.1.fc16

libdrm-2.4.26-1.fc15.x86_64
mesa-dri-drivers-7.11-0.11.20110525.0.fc15.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-intel-2.15.0-3.fc15.x86_64
xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.10.2-1.fc15.x86_64

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Fn-F5 (reduce brightness) or Fn-F6 (increase brightness)
2. echo 1 > /sys/devices/virtual/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
3. cat /sys/devices/virtual/backlight/acpi_video0/actual_brightness
4. setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=[two-digit-hex-value]

Actual results:
With the first three steps, the feedback indicates that brightness has indeed been changed. However, the actual brightness remains at 100% throughout.

With setpci, lspci-ing the register always reads 00

Expected results:
Backlight brightness should change corresponding to the commands entered.

Additional info:
Also filed at bugs.freedesktop.org:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34417

and Red Hat Bugzilla:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=689962
Comment 1 Michel Alexandre Salim 2011-06-27 21:20:31 UTC
Created attachment 63582 [details]
lspci -vv
Comment 2 Michel Alexandre Salim 2011-06-27 21:24:23 UTC
Created attachment 63602 [details]
Disassembled DSDT

Taken with acpidump followed by iasl, per http://www.linux.it/~malattia/wiki/index.php/Disassemble_your_DSDT
Comment 3 Michel Alexandre Salim 2011-06-27 21:34:29 UTC
Created attachment 63622 [details]
dmesg changes from setting brightness

(brightness set by echo-ing to /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness -- kernel booted with options i915.lvds_use_ssc=0 drm.debug=0x06)
Comment 4 Michel Alexandre Salim 2011-06-27 21:43:22 UTC
Created attachment 63632 [details]
dmesg changes from issuing setpci command

[root@sojourner sony]# setpci -s 00:02.0 f4.b=ff
[root@sojourner sony]# setpci -s 00:02.0 f4.b
00
Comment 5 Michel Alexandre Salim 2011-06-30 18:56:50 UTC
Same results with 3.0-rc5
Comment 6 Michel Alexandre Salim 2011-07-13 13:01:41 UTC
Created attachment 65412 [details]
mjg's i915 native GPU backlight control patch from linux-next

Applying Matthew Garrett's latest iteration of the i915 native backlight patch,
already in linux-next, on top of Linus' 3.0rc7 fixes the issue for me.

Several points:
1) it'd be nice if the acpi_video0 interface is not made available since it does not work - is there a way to blacklist my particular hardware?

2) is there a kernel switch for selecting the graphics device's backlight control, similar to how now the user can select between video.ko and the vendor-supplied driver?
Comment 7 Zhang Rui 2012-01-18 05:21:56 UTC
It's great that the kernel bugzilla is back.

Can you please verify if the problem still exists in the latest upstream
kernel?
Comment 8 Zhang Rui 2012-05-24 08:00:23 UTC
bug closed as there is no response from the bug reporter.
please feel free to reopen it if the problem still exists in the latest upstream kernel.

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