Brightness down key doesn't work properly on dell mini (Jaunty Beta)

[Anselm Reisner]

Version of Ubuntu: jaunty (Beta)
Version of gnome-power-manager: 2.24.2-2ubuntu7
Hardware: Dell Inspiron mini 9
Last known working version: Intrepid

When I hit the brightness down key it reacts strangely. Sometimes the brightness is reduced as expected but often brightness remains the same or is increased. Especially if the brightness is already quite low. When I kill gnome-power-manager I can adjust the brightness properly. Of course without visual indication.
The attachment is the output of (I hit brightness down 10 times) :
gnome-power-manager --no-daemon --verbose > verbose-mode-output.txt

output of xev after I killed gnome-power-manager (I hit the key only once):
keycode 232 = (keysym 0x1008ff03, XF86MonBrightnessDown), state = 0x0
keycode 232 = (keysym 0x1008ff03, XF86MonBrightnessDown), state = 0x0
keycode 232 = (keysym 0x1008ff03, XF86MonBrightnessDown), state = 0x0
keycode 232 = (keysym 0x1008ff03, XF86MonBrightnessDown), state = 0x0

output of lshal -m:
12:02:13.915: computer_logicaldev_input_0 condition ButtonPressed = brightness-down
12:02:13.939: platform_i8042_i8042_KBD_port_logicaldev_input condition ButtonPressed = brightness-down

[mason (tackypamphlet)]

I probably had the same problem. I have a Dell Mini 9 and the brightness keys worked fine in Intrepid, but bounce around uselessly in Jaunty (I'm using the Release build). A BIOS update fixed my problem (got the idea from drizek's comment in bug #337731). I bought my Mini (new!) five months ago, yet it had BIOS A01. This problem nicely evaporated after flashing it to the current A05.

You'll need a Windows box to create a bootable flash drive using Dell's BIOS update utility. See http://en.community.dell.com/wikis/linux/dell-i910-mini-vostro-a90-usb-key-drive-flashbios-utility.aspx .

[Hugo St-Germain (hugo-st-germain)]

I have the same problem with an ACER 7720-6374. I cannot control brightness using FN + arrow keys since upgrading to Jaunty (brightness just goes up and down erraticly). It works fine through the Power Manager Brightness Applet. Also works fine using FN + arrow keys if I kill gnome-power-manager.

[Scott Howard (showard314)]

Thank you for your report and work on this. Has anyone else tried updating BIOS as suggested by mason?

Something else to check out is bug #376924, specifically a link to a potential patch at: http://marc.info/?l=linux-acpi&m=124456088526538&w=2. If you are able, try that patch in acpi and report if it helps.

To help with debugging can you post the following 3 pieces of information to this bug report:

1) hit the brightness up and down cominations
2) post the output of: cat /var/log/message | grep gnome-power-manager
This will return the reason GNOME Power Manager did a specific action.

1) run the command: /usr/sbin/hald --daemon=no --verbose=yes --retain-privileges
2) hit the brightness up and down combinations and post the output of the terminal

And finally, could you please attach the resulting log file of:
/usr/share/gnome-power-manager/gnome-power-bugreport &> gpm.log
to the report?

[komputes (komputes)]

Not sure how related this is but on my Mini 9 when i press the brightness buttons, I do not get the standard libnotify rule of brightness in the top right corner.

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in Scott's comment. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!