Bug 77451 - No backlight on DELL XPS13 after upgrade from 3.14.4 to 3.14.5
Summary: No backlight on DELL XPS13 after upgrade from 3.14.4 to 3.14.5
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Alias: None
Product: Drivers
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Video(DRI - Intel) (show other bugs)
Hardware: x86-64 Linux
: P3 normal
Assignee: Jani Nikula
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2014-06-06 22:21 UTC by Elias Probst
Modified: 2014-06-18 13:50 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Kernel Version: 3.14.5
Subsystem:
Regression: Yes
Bisected commit-id:


Attachments
Collected backlight debug data (25.24 KB, application/x-xz)
2014-06-06 22:21 UTC, Elias Probst
Details

Description Elias Probst 2014-06-06 22:21:12 UTC
Created attachment 138431 [details]
Collected backlight debug data

3.14.5 breaks the backlight on a DELL XPS 13 (L322X).
The screen goes dark the moment the Kernel initializes.
The brightness FN keys don't have any effect.
A 'cat max_brightness > brightness' either.

The reason is very likely:
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/rafael/linux-pm.git/commit/?h=linux-next&id=1811fcb029fa3eca5bd1d25eab386b0c4b80fb93

As outlined in http://hansdegoede.livejournal.com/13889.html some debug information:

DMI data:
bios_date: 08/28/2013
bios_vendor: Dell Inc.
bios_version: A10
board_asset_tag:
board_name:
board_serial: .7CKFVW1.              .
board_vendor: Dell Inc.
board_version:
chassis_asset_tag:
chassis_serial: 7CKFVW1
chassis_type: 8
chassis_vendor: Dell Inc.
chassis_version: 0.1
product_name: XPS L322X
product_serial: 7CKFVW1
product_uuid: 44454C4C-4300-104B-8046-B7C04F565731
product_version:
sys_vendor: Dell Inc.

System is booted in UEFI-mode.

I booted with each of those options:
video.use_native_backlight=0
video.use_native_backlight=1
acpi_backlight=vendor
acpi_osi="!Windows 2012"
acpi_osi="!Windows 2009"

For each boot, I ran this hacked up script (resulting output is attached as XZ):
#!/bin/sh
DIR="$1"
mkdir ${DIR}
ls -l /sys/class/backlight/* > ${DIR}/backlights
for backlight in /sys/class/backlight/*
do
  cat ${backlight}/brightness > ${DIR}/$(basename ${backlight})_brightness.default
  cat ${backlight}/max_brightness > ${DIR}/$(basename ${backlight})_max_brightness.default
done
echo "Please lower brightness via keyboard now, then press <ENTER>"
read something
for backlight in /sys/class/backlight/*
do
  cat ${backlight}/brightness > ${DIR}/$(basename ${backlight})_brightness.low
  cat ${backlight}/max_brightness > ${DIR}/$(basename ${backlight})_max_brightness.low
done
echo "Please increase brightness via keyboard now, then press <ENTER>"
read something
for backlight in /sys/class/backlight/*
do
  cat ${backlight}/brightness > ${DIR}/$(basename ${backlight})_brightness.high
  cat ${backlight}/max_brightness > ${DIR}/$(basename ${backlight})_max_brightness.high
done
cat /proc/cmdline > ${DIR}/cmdline
dmesg > ${DIR}/dmesg.log
grep '.*' /sys/class/dmi/id/*_* 2> /dev/null > ${DIR}/dmi.log
Comment 1 Elias Probst 2014-06-07 10:13:47 UTC
Backlight works again on 3.15-rc8, so this must have been fixed somewhere inbetween 3.14.5 and 3.15-rc8.

Controlling the brightness using the FN keys works now as well and also via KDE's battery applet.
Comment 2 Jani Nikula 2014-06-09 15:03:13 UTC
For posterity:

Presumed broken in 3.14.5 by

commit e4b2de2daa7c854b661d59196ce4ff996b948ecd
Author: Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@intel.com>
Date:   Mon Apr 28 13:10:07 2014 +0300

    drm/i915: restore QUIRK_NO_PCH_PWM_ENABLE

which fixes an earlier regression (so we can't revert that).

Presumed fixed in 3.15-rc2 by

commit 39fbc9c8f6765959b55e0b127dd5c57df5a47d67
Author: Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@intel.com>
Date:   Wed Apr 9 11:22:06 2014 +0300

    drm/i915: check VBT for supported backlight type

and

commit c675949ec58ca50d5a3ae3c757892f1560f6e896
Author: Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@intel.com>
Date:   Wed Apr 9 11:31:37 2014 +0300

    drm/i915: do not setup backlight if not available according to VBT
Comment 3 Jani Nikula 2014-06-09 15:03:59 UTC
And thanks for the bug report.

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