ACPI Problems on Sony Vaio SZ61MN, no brightness ctrl, no power button

ACPI Problems on Sony Vaio SZ61MN, no brightness ctrl, no power button

[Sebastian Pohl]

Hi there!

First i hope my other messages have realy disappereard. I send them 
yesterday from a windows machine and as described in the FAQ it seemed 
to be blocked because of the charset. If by any chance that message 
arrives please excuse it and ignore it!

My Problem exists on a Sony Vaio Laptop with the modelcode SZ61MN/B. I 
am currently running Archlinux with a 2.6.25.11-1 kernel. Most things on 
the notebook seem to be working, even the lidswitch is recognized.

Problems are the non-working power button, thats a real problem, just 
annoying, and what realy is a pain, the backlight brigthness is not 
adjustable, so i always get a nice suntan from the screen. That realy 
sucks at night...

I tried for about a week now to find a solution and i worked my way 
through all of the possible solutions called sony-laptop, sonypi, 
sony-acpi but none of them worked for me. The web also holds some other 
persons with the exact same problem. I also tried to contact the 
maintainers and writers of that programs but i got no reply till now and 
no solution. So this is my last chance to get an answer here and i hope 
you can help me!

As i am not that of a pro linux user, i am not quite sure what 
information you would need to possibly help me. Please tell me what info 
i can provide to make the case clearer!

kind regards

      Sebastian

Re: ACPI Problems on Sony Vaio SZ61MN, no brightness ctrl, no power button

[Zhang Rui]

Hi, Sebastian,

Please file a new bug report for each of the problem (power button and
brightness) at http://bugzilla.kernel.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=ACPI
and attach the files listed below. :)

On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 15:20 +0200, Sebastian Pohl wrote:
> Hi there!
> 
> First i hope my other messages have realy disappereard. I send them 
> yesterday from a windows machine and as described in the FAQ it seemed 
> to be blocked because of the charset. If by any chance that message 
> arrives please excuse it and ignore it!
> 
> My Problem exists on a Sony Vaio Laptop with the modelcode SZ61MN/B. I 
> am currently running Archlinux with a 2.6.25.11-1 kernel. Most things on 
> the notebook seem to be working, even the lidswitch is recognized.
> 
> Problems are the non-working power button,
what do you mean by non-working power button?
Pressing the power button doesn't power off the laptop, right?
what if you press it for four seconds?

please run "grep . /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/*" both before and
after pressing the power button and attach the result.

>  thats a real problem, just 
> annoying, and what realy is a pain, the backlight brigthness is not 
> adjustable, so i always get a nice suntan from the screen. That realy 
> sucks at night...
please attach the acpidump output with the latest pmtools at
http://www.lesswatts.org/patches/linux_acpi/

> 
> I tried for about a week now to find a solution and i worked my way 
> through all of the possible solutions called sony-laptop, sonypi, 
> sony-acpi but none of them worked for me.
what did you get?
empty /sys/class/backlight/ entry with any of these drivers loaded?
or the backlight I/F exists but they don't work for you?

cc Mattia, who is the maintainer of sony-laptop driver. :)

thanks,
rui

Re: ACPI Problems on Sony Vaio SZ61MN, no brightness ctrl, no power button

[Sebastian Pohl]

Hi!

Thanks for your answer!

Zhang Rui wrote:
> Hi, Sebastian,
>
> Please file a new bug report for each of the problem (power button and
> brightness) at http://bugzilla.kernel.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=ACPI
> and attach the files listed below. :)
>
>   
Submitted both, after checking for existing, similar bugs :)

http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11095
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11096
> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 15:20 +0200, Sebastian Pohl wrote:
>   
>> Hi there!
>>
>> First i hope my other messages have realy disappereard. I send them 
>> yesterday from a windows machine and as described in the FAQ it seemed 
>> to be blocked because of the charset. If by any chance that message 
>> arrives please excuse it and ignore it!
>>
>> My Problem exists on a Sony Vaio Laptop with the modelcode SZ61MN/B. I 
>> am currently running Archlinux with a 2.6.25.11-1 kernel. Most things on 
>> the notebook seem to be working, even the lidswitch is recognized.
>>
>> Problems are the non-working power button,
>>     
> what do you mean by non-working power button?
> Pressing the power button doesn't power off the laptop, right?
> what if you press it for four seconds?
>
> please run "grep . /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/*" both before and
> after pressing the power button and attach the result.
>
>   
Yes, youre right, pressing the button has no effect. Pressing 4 seconds 
powers off the laptop. Is that done via acpi too? Thought that was a 
hardwarething.
Uploaded both outputs here: 
http://www.twisted-artwork.de/vault/linux/powerbutton.txt
>>  thats a real problem, just 
>> annoying, and what realy is a pain, the backlight brigthness is not 
>> adjustable, so i always get a nice suntan from the screen. That realy 
>> sucks at night...
>>     
> please attach the acpidump output with the latest pmtools at
> http://www.lesswatts.org/patches/linux_acpi/
>   
As i am not sure if its wise to paste it here, i just uploaded it to my 
webspace, its quite a long file.
(And as i remember attachments on emails are not allowed on mailing lists?)
The URL is http://www.twisted-artwork.de/vault/linux/acpidump.txt
>   
>> I tried for about a week now to find a solution and i worked my way 
>> through all of the possible solutions called sony-laptop, sonypi, 
>> sony-acpi but none of them worked for me.
>>     
> what did you get?
> empty /sys/class/backlight/ entry with any of these drivers loaded?
> or the backlight I/F exists but they don't work for you?
>
>   
The backlight files exist but they dont change anything. When i use the 
sonypi driver
i can change some of the stuff with the program spicctrl. Powering of 
the internal devices
works, adjusting fanspeed works, adjusting backlight just has no effects.
> cc Mattia, who is the maintainer of sony-laptop driver. :)
>
>   
Did that too a few days ago, but got no answer, maybe i got the wrong 
adress.


Thanks for your help, i hope it doesnt take too long to solve this, 
cause in the meantime i am forced to use Windows when i am on the road, 
caus it has nearly twice the runtime on battery... :)

regards

      sebastian

Re: ACPI Problems on Sony Vaio SZ61MN, no brightness ctrl, no power button

[Mattia Dongili]

Hey there,

sorry for being late... as usually happens recently.

On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 11:32:05AM +0200, Sebastian Pohl wrote:
> Hi!
...
>> Please file a new bug report for each of the problem (power button and
>> brightness) at http://bugzilla.kernel.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=ACPI
>> and attach the files listed below. :)
>>
>>   
> Submitted both, after checking for existing, similar bugs :)
>
> http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11095
> http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11096
>> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 15:20 +0200, Sebastian Pohl wrote:
>>   
>>> Hi there!
>>>
>>> First i hope my other messages have realy disappereard. I send them  
>>> yesterday from a windows machine and as described in the FAQ it 
>>> seemed to be blocked because of the charset. If by any chance that 
>>> message arrives please excuse it and ignore it!
>>>
>>> My Problem exists on a Sony Vaio Laptop with the modelcode SZ61MN/B. 
>>> I am currently running Archlinux with a 2.6.25.11-1 kernel. Most 
>>> things on the notebook seem to be working, even the lidswitch is 
>>> recognized.
>>>
>>> Problems are the non-working power button,
>>>     
>> what do you mean by non-working power button?
>> Pressing the power button doesn't power off the laptop, right?
>> what if you press it for four seconds?
>>
>> please run "grep . /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/*" both before and
>> after pressing the power button and attach the result.
>>
>>   
> Yes, youre right, pressing the button has no effect. Pressing 4 seconds  
> powers off the laptop. Is that done via acpi too? Thought that was a  
> hardwarething.
> Uploaded both outputs here:  
> http://www.twisted-artwork.de/vault/linux/powerbutton.txt

this is interesting, I never saw something like that for vaios and
linux.

>>>  thats a real problem, just annoying, and what realy is a pain, the 
>>> backlight brigthness is not adjustable, so i always get a nice suntan 
>>> from the screen. That realy sucks at night...
...
>>> I tried for about a week now to find a solution and i worked my way  
>>> through all of the possible solutions called sony-laptop, sonypi,  
>>> sony-acpi but none of them worked for me.
>>>     
>> what did you get?
>> empty /sys/class/backlight/ entry with any of these drivers loaded?
>> or the backlight I/F exists but they don't work for you?
>>
>>   
> The backlight files exist but they dont change anything. When i use the  
> sonypi driver
> i can change some of the stuff with the program spicctrl. Powering of  
> the internal devices
> works, adjusting fanspeed works, adjusting backlight just has no effects.

The SZ series have a stamina/speed switch switch between 2 video cards.
Usually one is an NVidia (for speed) and one is an Intel (for stamina).
On the NVidia there is nothing we can do (you can try nvclock or any
nvidia proprietary tool as documented on my wiki[1]), while for the
Intel card it's a different story (again documented on my wiki).
If you have no luck with the sony-laptop provided backlight control you
can try xbacklight that, as far as I can see[2], should work on your
Intel chipset.

hope this helps

[1]: http://www.linux.it/~malattia/wiki/index.php/Sony-laptop#Brightness
[2]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xbacklight/+bug/173652
-- 
mattia
:wq!

Re: ACPI Problems on Sony Vaio SZ61MN, no brightness ctrl, no power button

[Sebastian Pohl]

Hi!

Mattia Dongili wrote:
> Hey there,
>
> sorry for being late... as usually happens recently.
>
>   
:)
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 11:32:05AM +0200, Sebastian Pohl wrote:
>   
>> Hi!
>>     
> ...
>   
>>> Please file a new bug report for each of the problem (power button and
>>> brightness) at http://bugzilla.kernel.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=ACPI
>>> and attach the files listed below. :)
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> Submitted both, after checking for existing, similar bugs :)
>>
>> http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11095
>> http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11096
>>     
>>> On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 15:20 +0200, Sebastian Pohl wrote:
>>>   
>>>       
>>>> Hi there!
>>>>
>>>> First i hope my other messages have realy disappereard. I send them  
>>>> yesterday from a windows machine and as described in the FAQ it 
>>>> seemed to be blocked because of the charset. If by any chance that 
>>>> message arrives please excuse it and ignore it!
>>>>
>>>> My Problem exists on a Sony Vaio Laptop with the modelcode SZ61MN/B. 
>>>> I am currently running Archlinux with a 2.6.25.11-1 kernel. Most 
>>>> things on the notebook seem to be working, even the lidswitch is 
>>>> recognized.
>>>>
>>>> Problems are the non-working power button,
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> what do you mean by non-working power button?
>>> Pressing the power button doesn't power off the laptop, right?
>>> what if you press it for four seconds?
>>>
>>> please run "grep . /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/*" both before and
>>> after pressing the power button and attach the result.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> Yes, youre right, pressing the button has no effect. Pressing 4 seconds  
>> powers off the laptop. Is that done via acpi too? Thought that was a  
>> hardwarething.
>> Uploaded both outputs here:  
>> http://www.twisted-artwork.de/vault/linux/powerbutton.txt
>>     
>
> this is interesting, I never saw something like that for vaios and
> linux.
>
>   
Its not a big problem, its just annoying...
>>>>  thats a real problem, just annoying, and what realy is a pain, the 
>>>> backlight brigthness is not adjustable, so i always get a nice suntan 
>>>> from the screen. That realy sucks at night...
>>>>         
> ...
>   
>>>> I tried for about a week now to find a solution and i worked my way  
>>>> through all of the possible solutions called sony-laptop, sonypi,  
>>>> sony-acpi but none of them worked for me.
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> what did you get?
>>> empty /sys/class/backlight/ entry with any of these drivers loaded?
>>> or the backlight I/F exists but they don't work for you?
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> The backlight files exist but they dont change anything. When i use the  
>> sonypi driver
>> i can change some of the stuff with the program spicctrl. Powering of  
>> the internal devices
>> works, adjusting fanspeed works, adjusting backlight just has no effects.
>>     
>
> The SZ series have a stamina/speed switch switch between 2 video cards.
> Usually one is an NVidia (for speed) and one is an Intel (for stamina).
> On the NVidia there is nothing we can do (you can try nvclock or any
> nvidia proprietary tool as documented on my wiki[1]), while for the
> Intel card it's a different story (again documented on my wiki).
> If you have no luck with the sony-laptop provided backlight control you
> can try xbacklight that, as far as I can see[2], should work on your
> Intel chipset.
>
> hope this helps
>
> [1]: http://www.linux.it/~malattia/wiki/index.php/Sony-laptop#Brightness
> [2]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xbacklight/+bug/173652
>   

GREAT! [2] helped! Now i can change the backlight with xbacklight -set 
value.
As you said this only works for the intel chipset with is the graphic 
adapter i use when i am using the laptop mobile. So its annoying that i 
cant change the brightness wit the nvidia card but not as much of a 
problem as it was with the intel chipset. As the nvidia driver is a 
propietrary one, i dont think that is a thing i or anyone here can solve?
 
Thank you so much! Is the brigthness issue now still a bug or should i 
delete it from bugzilla?

regards

         Sebastian

Re: ACPI Problems on Sony Vaio SZ61MN, no brightness ctrl, no power button

[Sebastian Pohl]

Mattia Dongili wrote:
>
> The SZ series have a stamina/speed switch switch between 2 video cards.
> Usually one is an NVidia (for speed) and one is an Intel (for stamina).
> On the NVidia there is nothing we can do (you can try nvclock or any
> nvidia proprietary tool as documented on my wiki[1]), while for the
> Intel card it's a different story (again documented on my wiki).
> If you have no luck with the sony-laptop provided backlight control you
> can try xbacklight that, as far as I can see[2], should work on your
> Intel chipset.
>
> hope this helps
>
> [1]: http://www.linux.it/~malattia/wiki/index.php/Sony-laptop#Brightness
> [2]: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xbacklight/+bug/173652
>   

Hi,

the backlight now is working with the Intel chipset. But the workaround 
had some sideeffects: Now the lidswitch is unfunctional. :/

I tried to find out if it works by running acpi_listen but the lidswitch 
generates no events...

Any ideas?

regards

       sebastian