There must be a bug somewhere in my bios dumping code. I'll take a  
look at it. Note smartdimmer and nvclock are internally the same. Only  
from the outside smartdimmer looks different.

Roderick

Quoting Bem Jones-Bey <email address hidden>:

> On 02/22/2009 01:53 AM, Thunderbird wrote:
>> What is different when you run it as a user and at startup? In both
>> cases the nvidia drivers aren't loaded yet? You are certain that you
>> use the same binary in both cases?
>
> I think you misunderstand: smartdimmer gives me that error every time
> hald tries to run it. hald runs it in response to me pressing the
> brightness up and down keys.
>
> It runs the following to set the brightness: ($value is passed into the
> script)
>
> if [ "$HAL_PROP_LAPTOP_PANEL_ACCESS_METHOD" = "nvidia8" ]; then
>      smartdimmer -s $((($value +1)*5))
>      exit 0
> fi
>
> And it runs the following to get the brightness:
>
> if [ "$HAL_PROP_LAPTOP_PANEL_ACCESS_METHOD" = "nvidia8" ]; then
>      value=$((`smartdimmer -g | awk '{print $3;}'`))
>      value=$((($value /5)-1))
>      exit ${value}
> fi
>
> I am sure that it is running the same binary there that I am running by
> hand, as the only smartdimmer on my system is /usr/bin/smartdimmer, and
> it reliably stops working when I copy in the new binary, and works again
> when I copy in the old one. Both binaries work fine from the command
> line. I just checked, and hald seems to be running the script as root
> (according to 'id' and 'whoami'), so I'm completely not sure why I'm
> seeing different behavior.
>
> In all these cases, X is up and running with the nvidia drivers.
>
>>
>> Perhaps it failed to report bios info when running from a startup
>> script. Could you check if the output of 'nvclock -i' shows bios info
>> in both situations?
>
> Here's nvclock -i run from a gnome-terminal, as my normal user:
> -- General info --
> Card: 		nVidia QuadroFX 570M
> Architecture: 	G84 A2
> PCI id: 	0x40c
> GPU clock: 	182.248 MHz
> Bustype: 	PCI-Express
>
> -- Shader info --
> Clock: 594.000 MHz
> Stream units: 32 (11b)
> ROP units: 8 (11b)
> -- Memory info --
> Amount: 	256 MB
> Type: 		128 bit DDR3
> Clock: 		601.712 MHz
>
> -- PCI-Express info --
> Current Rate: 	16X
> Maximum rate: 	16X
>
> -- Smartdimmer info --
> Backlight level: 85%
>
> -- Sensor info --
> Sensor: GPU Internal Sensor
> GPU temperature: 68C
>
> -- VideoBios information --
> Version: 60.84.56.01.02
> Signon message: HP VB10 Mobile NB8P-GLM VGA BIOS
> Performance level 0: gpu 275MHz/shader 550MHz/memory 301MHz/1.15V/100%
> Performance level 1: gpu 475MHz/shader 950MHz/memory 702MHz/1.20V/100%
> VID mask: 3
> Voltage level 0: 1.15V, VID: 3
> Voltage level 1: 1.20V, VID: 3
>
> And here's what it looks like when HAL runs it:
>
> -- General info --
> Card: 		nVidia QuadroFX 570M
> Architecture: 	G84 A2
> PCI id: 	0x40c
> GPU clock: 	182.248 MHz
> Bustype: 	PCI-Express
>
> -- Shader info --
> Clock: 594.000 MHz
> Stream units: 32 (11b)
> ROP units: 8 (11b)
> -- Memory info --
> Amount: 	256 MB
> Type: 		128 bit DDR3
> Clock: 		601.712 MHz
>
> -- PCI-Express info --
> Current Rate: 	16X
> Maximum rate: 	16X
>
> -- Sensor info --
> Sensor: GPU Internal Sensor
> GPU temperature: 71C
>
> It does indeed look like it's missing BIOS info. Interestingly enough, I
> get the same behavior if I use the 0.8b4 version of nvclock, but its
> smartdimmer works from hald because it ignores the fact that it can't
> look it up.
>
> --
> Bem Jones-Bey (<email address hidden>)
>
> --
> No Screen Backlight Control; Notebooks (Vaio, Macbook, HP/Compaq,   
> Samsung, Zepto et al.)  with Nvidia Geforce8/Geforce9/Quadro series   
> graphics
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/95444
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL): Invalid
> Status in “hal” source package in Ubuntu: Invalid
> Status in “hotkey-setup” source package in Ubuntu: Invalid
> Status in “linux” source package in Ubuntu: New
> Status in “nvclock” source package in Ubuntu: New
> Status in “nvidia-graphics-drivers-180” source package in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> Using Ubuntu on laptops with Nvidia Geforce8/Geforce9/Quadro vga card:
>
> On various laptops from Sony, HP, Samsung and others there is no way  
>  to control backlight brightness. In case of Sony e.g. on Vaios with  
>  8-series adapters, e.g.
> nVidia Corporation GeForce 8400M GS
> nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600M GT (rev a1)
>
> The registers have been found (kudos to mikes!) and incorporated into
> nvclock, which you can check out by anonymous cvs and install:
>
> ]$ sudo apt-get install cvs
> ]$ cvs   
> -d:pserver:<email address hidden>:/cvsroot/nvclock   
> login
> ]$ cvs -z3   
> -d:pserver:<email address hidden>:/cvsroot/nvclock co  
>  -P nvclock
> ]$ cd nvclock
> ]$ ./autogen.sh
> ]$ ./configure
> ]$ make
> ]$ sudo make install
>
> To test, make sure you are using nVidia's proprietary driver, then:
> ]$ sudo nvclock -S 100
> ]$ sudo nvclock -S 15
> ]$ sudo nvclock -S +10
>
> So far mikes' registers have been found to work on:
>
> Apple laptops
> {
> Macbook 5,1 Aluminum 13.3"  (Geforce 9400M)
> }
>
> HP/Compaq laptops
> {
> 8510W (Quadro FX 570M, MXM)
> 8710P (Quadro NVS 320M, MXM)
> }
>
> Samsung laptops:
> {
> Q210 (Geforce 9200M)
> Q310 (Geforce 9200M)
> R510 (Geforce 9200M)
> }
>
> Sony laptops:
> {
> 8400M GS:
> VGN SZ650N, SZ61MN/B, SZ730E, SZ750N, SZ71MN/B, SZ71E SZ95S
>
> 8400M GT:
> VGN FZ38M, FZ31M, FZ11Z, NR31, AR41E, FZ11S, FZ290, FZ250AE, FZ21E,   
> FZ21M, FZ21S, FZ470E, FZ340E, FZ190N, FZ18M, FZ31E, FZ18E, FZ260E   
> NR21Z, NR38S, NR21S,FZ280E
>
> 8600M GS:
> VGN FZ31Z, FZ21Z, FZ31S
>
> 8600M GT:
> VGN AR51SU, AR71S
> }
>
> Zepto laptops
> {
> Geforce 9600GT based laptops using MXM cards
> }
>
> Add your model to the list by clicking on the "Update description /   
> tags" link, NOT by asking in a bug comment for someone else to do it.
>
> To get hotkeys to work, follow the instructions in this comment:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hotkey-setup/+bug/95444/comments/75
> or install the package at :
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hotkey-setup/+bug/95444/comments/111
>
> Dual-adapter models (SZ6 among others) can get backlight control   
> with the Intel adapter using xbacklight, and can get hotkey   
> functionality as per bug #173652.
>