Brightness Issue on HP - Dv6

[JordanGfx]

Hello Guys,

I have an old dell dv6 laptop, all working well apart from the brightness graphic would slide up or down with the hotkeys but brightness would not change.

So I looked through all your threads on fixing the brightness control issue, i tried the fix where i add the app called brightness and add an entry to the start up applications, with the command that was something like xbrightness -20 or whatever value.

This did nothing.

So i then did the fix where i added the file called '20-intel.conf' to a certain folder and rebooted (with some commands in there). This actually made my brightness permanently more dim which was much easier on the eyes, but still impossible to alter up or down after this point.


So then it tried the fix in this link and this sucessfully updated the grub file: once i added the new commands:

https://www.debugpoint.com/2016/10/2-way...ntu-linux/

Then when i rebooted my brightness was stuck on MAX and the slider wont move at all now, also the GUI based brightness app i then installed from this link but appears nowhere on the system, so maybe only works with AMD graphics cards or not this version of linux?

Could someone please help me in the right direction?

I've tried to now undo all these steps and go back to the 20-intel.conf method to atleast lower my brightness so i can use my laptop without it keeping me awake all night, but even that wont work now and i dont have a snapshot from the fresh install.

Will I have to reformat and re-install all over again ?

Poor first time experience of Linux Lite so far, but everything else is amazing and it has worked wonders on reviving my wifes old laptop so would love some advice as love everything else about this Distro of linux so far!!

[az2020]

I don't know how to tell you how to undo the changes you made. But, apparently the brightness can be controlled from the command line using xrandr. I've never done it. I found that googling. There are other how-tos about using that command for that purpose.

If someone were good at scripting, they could write a script to get the current value, increment/decrement that value, and set it. In that way, the script could be assigned to a keyboard combination. Like Windows + q (and Windows + w) to increment & decrement. Pass the script a parm to tell it which way it's supposed to go.

I've never understood grub. I think it saves a copy somewhere. I don't know if the commonly-used "boot-repair" tool would get you back to before that change. (I'd wait for someone to suggest that before trying it.).

[JordanGfx]

Thanks, i will wait a few days then reformat and reinstall.

I will try the command you suggested before that if no joy, then i will reinstall and try with command if it works and if not will have to maybe add and replace that file and reboot everytime depending on time of day i plan to use laptop if all else fails.

So i can have wither super dim or super bright upon a fileswap and reboot.

This is my first time using linux but im familiar with command prompt, tweaking code etc so trying all those steps wasnt tricky for me, just doesnt seem to play ball with this setup yet.

Thanks again!

Will give a update regardless.

[az2020]

This is my first time using linux but im familiar with command prompt, tweaking code etc so trying all those steps wasnt tricky for me, just doesnt seem to play ball with this setup yet.

Can you run "inxi -Fxrz" and post the output here? (surrounded by code tags, the "#" button at the top of the editor). The "z" option will remove ip address, home-directory name, etc.  When you say LL doesn't play well with your laptop, I'm curious what it is. (Others might recognize something.).

Hang in there. I've used a few distros. Linux Lite is up in my top 2-3 (I don't have a #1, they're all best in their own ways.). The mistake you made was probably messing around with the grub. I stay away from that. (If I could ever get my hands on whomever dreamed that up, I would land a series of repetitious blows about his head and shoulders.). If you get into it, it starts to make sense. But... you'd think something so basic wouldn't be so primitive. Sometimes I hit "e" to edit the grub commands (remove "nosplash quiet" and see what's happening). When I edit that, it's like 1990 all over again. 1200baud modem. Press an arrow key, what a second for the cursor to move. WTH? Stuff like that makes me believe we really do live in a simulation, and people outside our dimension are laughing at us.

Have you checked whether Dell has updates for your bios? If so, look at the release notes for every version above yours. If nothing about the brightness keys were affected, it might be better not to update just for the sake of updating. Sometimes you can "brick" your laptop.

[Valtam]

I can't locate a 'Dell DV6' in Google, only HP. We'll need the exact make and model to accurately help you with this.

[JordanGfx]

I'm being a complete div, my wifes laptop is dell ive not slept well lately and overworked/stressed.. my laptop is infact a hp dv6, im literally going insane, apologies for that guys!!

So embarrassing.

Might help us assess the situation better, yeh the grub thing i edited as adding the splash = vendor thing but now i will search for some hp dv6 guidance and report back, will also try some of above advice, will report back to you all asap, its 6am now so just getting ready for work.

Thanks again for all your input, help and patience, will update you all asap.

Will also edit post subject when im home tonight to HP dv6.

[Valtam]

There are a lot of DV6 variants. If you could give us the full model number (underneath?) we'll go from there. Cheers.

[TheDead]

Hi,

I could be mistaken since there's a gazillion HP models but I think the exact model / Part number (could be written as MN or PN) is on a sticker under the battery.
Not on the battery itselft, but in the battery compartment.

[JordanGfx]

Hey thanks, i am super overtired from work (and lack of sleep lately) so just popped on to give you the model number for now.

Then i can action any of the mentioned steps on the weekend in the day, as at this time the brightness is not doing me any favors just now LOL

Thanks again for all who are helping out! 8)

model number is dv6-6b50sa

[Valtam]

Looks like it will be fixed, regardless. Luck of the model you are using

https://askubuntu.com/questions/162409/b...on-hd6770m

The cold hard truth...

https://forum.manjaro.org/t/backlight-an...-3/15716/8

"The HP Pavilion dv6 has a non-working acpi_video0 backlight interface
and an intel_backlight interface which works fine. Add a force_native
quirk for it so that the non-working acpi_video0 interface does not get
registered.

Note that there are quite a few HP Pavilion dv6 variants, some
woth ATI and some with NVIDIA hybrid gfx, both seem to need this
quirk to have working backlight control. There are also some versions
with only Intel integrated gfx, these may not need this quirk, but it
should not hurt there."

You could also try one of our newer kernels via Lite Tweaks, Kernel Installer to see if it's been patched.

Post #9 - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1724933

Happy hacking!