Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
The down side... The ViRGE chip controls the LCD, but I don't think it has to control the backlight. I've got documentation for the ViRGE, but no idea how to access the backlight if it isn't controlled by the ViRGE Question- can you do output selection via the MX? I can manually shut down the backlight if I use an Fn-key combination to shunt the video to the external VGA connector. If that's done via the ViRGE MX, then we might have a way to do this for my laptop's broken BIOS. -Kenny In theory? Yes, some of our drivers even support options to specify which output to use. Practically speaking, I don't personally have access to a MX, nor the time presently to implement it. (I think this would need hands on testing to complete.) Hah! Guess what?! I came back from doing some stuff in the house, and my backlight was off! I guess it needed to be done on it's own! Xset didn't do it the first time, but it does it now. Go figure. You sir, are a *God*. First you fix my VT-switching, then this! Hmm, odd. Sometimes we get lucky. Although, maybe it's not going to be repeatable. (Which seems more likely, given other mail you sent me.) -- Kevin ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
Question- can you do output selection via the MX? On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Kevin Brosius wrote: In theory? Yes, some of our drivers even support options to specify which output to use. Practically speaking, I don't personally have access to a MX, nor the time presently to implement it. (I think this would need hands on testing to complete.) I've got the time. Are the MX docs in .PDF/.DOC format? Are you under NDA? -Kenny -- Kenneth R. Crudup Sr. SW Engineer, Scott County Consulting, Washington, D.C. Home1: PO Box 914 Silver Spring, MD 20910-0914 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home2: 38010 Village Cmn. #217 Fremont, CA 94536-7525 (510) 745-0101 ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
Kenneth Crudup wrote: On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Kevin Brosius wrote: Does 'xset dpms force off' turn off the backlight on that machine? First thing I tried. -Kenny Does your laptop support apm in the BIOS at all? Out of curiosity I've added code to turn off the LCD panel to my latest driver version. I don't know if it will do anything for your backlight. It also might not restore the screen after a suspend. If you'd like to give it a shot let me know what happens. When trying a test where you may loose the screen, either 'sync' your disks just before going into suspend, or have a remote connection available so you can perform a clean shutdown. -- Kevin http://www.user1.netcarrier.com/~kbrosius/pages/virge.html ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
Does 'xset dpms force off' turn off the backlight on that machine? First thing I tried. On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Kevin Brosius wrote: Does your laptop support apm in the BIOS at all? Yeah, but this @#(^* laptop has no Backlight setting in the APM setup like my other laptops did; I used to rely on that to shut my backlight off. I got *this* laptop used and for cheap, and this is the only bad part of it. Out of curiosity I've added code to turn off the LCD panel to my latest driver version. I don't know if it will do anything for your backlight. It also might not restore the screen after a suspend. If you'd like to give it a shot let me know what happens. Yeah, I'd like it. Is it on your site in your .signature? (I'm not running the CVS build BTW.) When trying a test where you may loose the screen, either 'sync' your disks just before going into suspend, or have a remote connection available so you can perform a clean shutdown. Heh. Way ahead of ya: Alt-PrtSc-S followed by Alt-PrtSc-U saveth all. :-) -Kenny -- Kenneth R. Crudup Sr. SW Engineer, Scott County Consulting, Washington, D.C. Home1: PO Box 914 Silver Spring, MD 20910-0914 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home2: 38010 Village Cmn. #217 Fremont, CA 94536-7525 (510) 745-0101 ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
Kenneth Crudup wrote: Out of curiosity I've added code to turn off the LCD panel to my latest driver version. I don't know if it will do anything for your backlight. It also might not restore the screen after a suspend. If you'd like to give it a shot let me know what happens. Yeah, I'd like it. Is it on your site in your .signature? (I'm not running the CVS build BTW.) Yes, it's the 1.8.2 version. You'll need to use the -ignoreABI option to the Xserver to test it then, otherwise the Xserver won't allow you to load it. -- Kevin http://www.user1.netcarrier.com/~kbrosius/pages/virge.html ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Kevin Brosius wrote: Out of curiosity I've added code to turn off the LCD panel to my latest driver version. I don't know if it will do anything for your backlight. *sigh* Oh well, it was at least worth a try ...! Would xset dpms force off have done it? -Kenny -- Kenneth R. Crudup Sr. SW Engineer, Scott County Consulting, Washington, D.C. Home1: PO Box 914 Silver Spring, MD 20910-0914 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home2: 38010 Village Cmn. #217 Fremont, CA 94536-7525 (510) 745-0101 ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
Kenneth Crudup wrote: On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Kevin Brosius wrote: Out of curiosity I've added code to turn off the LCD panel to my latest driver version. I don't know if it will do anything for your backlight. *sigh* Oh well, it was at least worth a try ...! ? Did you try it? What happened? (I'm having a little trouble reading your mind from here.) Would xset dpms force off have done it? Oh, is that the command you used to test it? Yes, that would do it. Assuming nothing else went wrong. Did you verify the new module was loaded by checking the log file for the new version? The down side... The ViRGE chip controls the LCD, but I don't think it has to control the backlight. I've got documentation for the ViRGE, but no idea how to access the backlight if it isn't controlled by the ViRGE chip. -- Kevin ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
Would xset dpms force off have [tested] it? On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Kevin Brosius wrote: Oh, is that the command you used to test it? Yes, that would do it. Did you verify the new module was loaded by checking the log file for the new version? Kenneth R. Crudup Sr. SW Engineer ... The down side... The ViRGE chip controls the LCD, but I don't think it has to control the backlight. I've got documentation for the ViRGE, but no idea how to access the backlight if it isn't controlled by the ViRGE Question- can you do output selection via the MX? I can manually shut down the backlight if I use an Fn-key combination to shunt the video to the external VGA connector. If that's done via the ViRGE MX, then we might have a way to do this for my laptop's broken BIOS. -Kenny -- Kenneth R. Crudup Sr. SW Engineer, Scott County Consulting, Washington, D.C. Home1: PO Box 914 Silver Spring, MD 20910-0914 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home2: 38010 Village Cmn. #217 Fremont, CA 94536-7525 (510) 745-0101 ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Kenneth Crudup wrote: Would xset dpms force off have [tested] it? On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Kevin Brosius wrote: Oh, is that the command you used to test it? Yes, that would do it. Hah! Guess what?! I came back from doing some stuff in the house, and my backlight was off! I guess it needed to be done on it's own! Xset didn't do it the first time, but it does it now. Go figure. You sir, are a *God*. First you fix my VT-switching, then this! -Kenny -- Kenneth R. Crudup Sr. SW Engineer, Scott County Consulting, Washington, D.C. Home1: PO Box 914 Silver Spring, MD 20910-0914 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home2: 38010 Village Cmn. #217 Fremont, CA 94536-7525 (510) 745-0101 ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
On 5 Jan, Kenneth Crudup wrote: On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've lost track of which chip you are dealing with. S3 Virge MX. For the R128 chip I found that the DPMS only shuts down video output. I'd expect that, but I was under the impression that there was code specifically for the MX (an LCD-specific chip) that could shut down the associated backlight, too. Not in the Xfree driver for R128. The DPMS code shuts down the CRTC. This certainly shuts down video, but it has nothing special for LCD. If the MX or LCD electronics uses video shutdown to trigger LCD shutdown the same way that the CRT does, then the LCD will shut down. If not, then it will stay on. The change that I made was to add code that instructs the R128 to enter and exit S3 state when DPMS enters and exits shutdown mode. I do not know everything that it does for S3 state, but it is more than just shutting down the CRTC. R Horn ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
On 4 Jan, Kenneth Crudup wrote: On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Kevin Brosius wrote: Does 'xset dpms force off' turn off the backlight on that machine? First thing I tried. I've lost track of which chip you are dealing with. For the R128 chip I found that the DPMS only shuts down video output. It does not activate any of the other power saving modes. This is for a good reason (at least as default). Undesirable interactions were reported with the APM support when the X DPMS code used these other commands. In my case I do not want APM or ACPI to activate. I am cutting power in a server environment, and the APM/ACPI is aimed more at single user systems like laptops. Also, the Linux APM/ACPI support remains flakey. So I modified the R128 DPMS code to not only cut the video output, but also to activate the shutdown for other parts of the controller. I can post the diffs if this helps. This does raise a question for X users in general. Should there be an option to enable a more aggressive power management when DPMS is used? This would probably interfere with APM/ACPI, so the option would need appropriate warnings. But it would help the multi-user systems that need a more selective power management control. I my situation, power management consists of killing sound and display after idle, and controlling idle spindown time on selected disk drives. Some disks must remain spinning to meet response goals. Others can be spun down. The CPU must always remain ready for immediate response. R Horn ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've lost track of which chip you are dealing with. S3 Virge MX. For the R128 chip I found that the DPMS only shuts down video output. I'd expect that, but I was under the impression that there was code specifically for the MX (an LCD-specific chip) that could shut down the associated backlight, too. -Kenny -- Kenneth R. Crudup Sr. SW Engineer, Scott County Consulting, Washington, D.C. Home1: PO Box 914 Silver Spring, MD 20910-0914 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home2: 38010 Village Cmn. #217 Fremont, CA 94536-7525 (510) 745-0101 ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
Kenneth Crudup wrote: The main reason I went with the 4.X series is 'cause I'd read on the 'net that it has the ability to use APM (DPMS?) to darken laptop backlights, but I haven't seen the ability to do this anywhere. I've got a ProStar (AKA Sager/Kapok/Clevo/...) laptop with a dumber BIOS than my Transmonde, so it doesn't dim the backlight automatically via the BIOS and will stay on forever. Does 'xset dpms force off' turn off the backlight on that machine? -- Kevin ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
Re: [Xpert]Laptop backlight question
On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Kevin Brosius wrote: Does 'xset dpms force off' turn off the backlight on that machine? First thing I tried. -Kenny -- Kenneth R. Crudup Sr. SW Engineer, Scott County Consulting, Washington, D.C. Home1: PO Box 914 Silver Spring, MD 20910-0914 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home2: 38010 Village Cmn. #217 Fremont, CA 94536-7525 (510) 745-0101 ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
[Xpert]Laptop backlight question
The main reason I went with the 4.X series is 'cause I'd read on the 'net that it has the ability to use APM (DPMS?) to darken laptop backlights, but I haven't seen the ability to do this anywhere. I've got a ProStar (AKA Sager/Kapok/Clevo/...) laptop with a dumber BIOS than my Transmonde, so it doesn't dim the backlight automatically via the BIOS and will stay on forever. I know it can be done programmatically, as Windows '98 can do it with no special S3 Virge (/MX) driver necessary, just the generic one off of the S3 site. If it's just a matter of adding the relevant code in, I guess I could do it if someone knows the spec. Any clues, or have I been misinformed? -Kenny p.s. - BTW, thanks, Adam Richter- your CR33 fixes (which I got off Kevin B's site) fixed the VT-switching problem that also plagued me (and had me pulling my hair out trying to find the XF86Config option that I'd assumed made it happen). -- Kenneth R. Crudup Sr. SW Engineer, Scott County Consulting, Washington, D.C. Home1: PO Box 914 Silver Spring, MD 20910-0914 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home2: 38010 Village Cmn. #217 Fremont, CA 94536-7525 (510) 745-0101 ___ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
