Bug 10950

Created attachment 16575 [details]
lspci

Does the brightness work after loading driver sony-acpi?
Does the brightness work after loading driver sony-laptop?
Is there any chance that you can find something under /sys/class/backlight/?
Please attach the acpidump and dmesg output.

shogen inanc # modprobe -l | grep sony
/lib/modules/2.6.25.7-99/kernel/drivers/misc/sony-laptop.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.25.7-99/kernel/drivers/char/sonypi.ko

sony-acpi module not found and sonypi, sony-laptop modules is load.

shogen inanc # ls /sys/class/backlight/
shogen inanc #

it's empty.

Created attachment 16576 [details]
dmesg

Created attachment 16577 [details]
lsmod

Created attachment 16580 [details]
acpidump

Weird,
please make sure the /sys/class/backligh/ is still empty when the ACPI video driver is loaded,
please attach the result of "grep . /proc/acpi/video/*/*/*".

Hi, Inanc
    From the acpidump it seems that there is no _BQC object in your laptop.
    Will you please try the patch in http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10206#c13 
and see whether the problem still exists?
    Thanks. 

shogen / # ls /proc/acpi/video/GFX0/
DD01  DD02  DD03  DD04  DD05  DOS  info  POST  POST_info  ROM

shogen GFX0 # ls *
DOS  info  POST  POST_info  ROM

DD01:
brightness  EDID  info  state

DD02:
brightness  EDID  info  state

DD03:
brightness  EDID  info  state

DD04:
brightness  EDID  info  state

DD05:
brightness  EDID  info  state

DD01,DD02,DD03,DD05 under brightness is empty.

DD04 is shogen DD04 # cat brightness
levels:  100 100 4 16 28 40 52 64 76 88 100
current: 4

i tried patch and;

shogen backlight # ls /sys/class/backlight/
acpi_video0

shogen backlight # ls /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/
actual_brightness  bl_power  brightness  max_brightness  power  subsystem  uevent

I change brightness file echo 3 >brightness

shogen acpi_video0 # echo 3 >brightness

and

shogen acpi_video0 # cat brightness
3

but lcd backlight don't change.

i tried patch and;

shogen backlight # ls /sys/class/backlight/
acpi_video0

shogen backlight # ls /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/
actual_brightness  bl_power  brightness  max_brightness  power  subsystem  uevent

I change brightness file echo 3 >brightness

shogen acpi_video0 # echo 3 >brightness

and

shogen acpi_video0 # cat brightness
3

but lcd backlight don't change.

> Latest working kernel version: 2.6.25.7

This seems to conflict with the later comments which show
failures using /lib/modules/2.6.25.7-99

What is the newest kernel that works properly
and what is the oldest kernel that starts failing?

> /lib/modules/2.6.25.7-99/kernel/drivers/misc/sony-laptop.ko
> /lib/modules/2.6.25.7-99/kernel/drivers/char/sonypi.ko

Please test with these drivers absent,
and with just the sony-laptop driver present.

I don't get your question, sorry. The problem I face has always been present.
Is there anything more that I can do for you?

Please do this:

# rmmod sonypi
# rmmod sony-laptop

# modprobe video

And verify that the problem still occurs
then

# modprobe sony-laptop

And verify that the problem still occurs.
Where "problem" means no /sys/class/backlight/
and non-functional /proc/acpi/video

shogen inanc # rmmod sonypi
shogen inanc # rmmod sony-laptop
shogen inanc # modprobe video
shogen inanc # depmod -a
shogen inanc # lsmod | grep sony
shogen inanc # lsmod | grep video
video                  23696  0
output                  7680  1 video
videodev               33152  1 usbcam
v4l1_compat            16260  1 videodev
videobuf_dma_sg        17156  1 usbcam
videobuf_core          21764  2 usbcam,videobuf_dma_sg

and problem still occurs after it. 

after;

shogen inanc # modprobe sony-laptop
shogen inanc # depmod -a
shogen inanc # lsmod | grep sony
sony_laptop            36060  0

and problem still occurs after it. 

/sys/class/backlight/ and /proc/acpi/video non-functional.

ping

It seems that after the patch is applied, the /sys/class/backlight/ interface exists but the backlight brightness can't be changed.
Will you please confirm whether the brightness can be changed after the pressing hot-key? It is noted that sony-laptop should be loaded.

Thanks.

Yes. "It seems that after the patch is applied, the /sys/class/backlight/ interface exists but the backlight brightness can't be changed."
Pressing the hotkeys is not changing the brightness after the patch applied and before applied. sony-laptop module is loaded during all this processes.

Okay,
It seems that the standard _BCM method, which pokes the graphics device pci config space LBB register, doesn't work on your laptops. I don't know if this is normal, but I'll ask some graphics guys later. :)

then we have some other ways to make the backlight work for you,
1. check if there are any platform specific methods to control the brightness which is not supported by sony-laptop driver currently. cc Mattia Dongili, the maintainer of sony-laptop driver and see if he has some ideas. :)
2. in X mode, you can use xrandr/xbacklight to change the brightness, which pokes the native graphics device register.

Hi,
sorry, I've been holding off for a while from this thread.
The FZ series is not supported by sony-laptop. Backlight support in sony-laptop is bound to the SPIC device (SNY6001) which is not available on the FZ (and other) series.
To make things worse this laptop is carrying an NVidia card so if there is some tool that can dim your screenlight  is most probably some NVidia utility. You may want to try nvclock but only a limited number of NVidia chipsets are supported.

Hope this helps
-- mattia

(In reply to comment #20)
> To make things worse this laptop is carrying an NVidia card 
Hah, this answers why the _BCM method can not work for you.
the AML code assumes the laptop has a Intel integrated graphics card, and pokes the LBB register of pci device 00:02.0.
so Mattia is right, you need some nvidia utility to change the backlight.
Please also check if there is any BIOS update.
Anyway, this is not a Linux/ACPI problem.
re-assign this bug to video category.

Sending please lspci -n command print ?

Thanks

Created attachment 17843 [details]
lspci -n