Fixed brightness issue... now graphics tearing?

Quick to answer questions about finding your way around Linux Mint as a new user.
Forum rules
There are no such things as "stupid" questions. However if you think your question is a bit stupid, then this is the right place for you to post it. Stick to easy to-the-point questions that you feel people can answer fast. For long and complicated questions use the other forums in the support section.
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Locked
Leb

Fixed brightness issue... now graphics tearing?

Post by Leb »

Hello Everyone,

Complete Linux Noobie here,

I have installed Linux Mint 14, Cinnamon, on my Sony Vaio laptop with the following specs:
CPU~Dual core AMD E-450 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) clocked at Min:825.000Mhz Max:1650.000Mhz Kernel~3.5.0-17-generic x86_64 Up~10 min Mem~450.9/3555.9MB HDD~500.1GB(0.7% used) Procs~135 Client~Shell inxi~1.8.4
Sitting in my dark room, the first thing I went to do with my newly installed distro was to turn down the headache inducing brightness. However, brightness controls - both vendor keys AND in-distro options have no effect on screen brightness

1) Pressing Fn+F5, which by default lowers brightness, brings up a visual notification on screen that the brightness is lowering - while it in fact has no effect. Other vendor related key shortcuts appear to be functioning (Fn+f3/f4 lowers and rasied the volume as needed)

2) Going into "Brightness Settings" and moving the slider from one end to the other has no effect on the screens brightness.

I have done a few google searches and all have lead to the following solution:
Editing /etc/default/grub by adding in

Code: Select all

"acpi_backlight=vendor"
within the brackets of the line that says "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=" "
then running

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub
followed by a reboot.

This had 2 effects, neither of them good
1) Pressing FN+F5/F6 no longer provides the onscreen notification that brightness is being changed.. it also does not effect the brightness

2) Going into "Brightness Settings" - the slider for brightness is now completely gone.

I have also tried installing xbacklight and running commands xbacklight -10 xbacklight +10 etc and these have absolutely no effect on the brightness either.

This was a guide I used as reference
forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=45271&start=0

Do I have any other options for fixing this brightness issue?

Thank you,
Leb
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
User avatar
tdockery97
Level 14
Level 14
Posts: 5058
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:54 am
Location: Mt. Angel, Oregon

Re: Brightness Settings - No Effect

Post by tdockery97 »

There is one other option I am aware of that I know worked for me. First undo what you have already done so that you have the brightness slider back. Next, open Software Sources (either in Synaptic Package Manager "Edit" menu or Mint Update Manager "Edit" menu. Select the tab "Additional Drivers" and install the proprietary ATI driver. Once it is finished and says that 1 proprietary driver is installed, close it out and reboot. Now your brightness slider should produce the desired effect.
Mint Cinnamon 20.1
Leb

Re: Brightness Settings - No Effect

Post by Leb »

Thanks for the quick response! I'm giving this a try now... using update manager i've selecting the AMD graphics accelerator from fglrx and it's "Applying Changes"

It's at about 5-10% on the progress bar and hasn't move in about 20 minutes. Is this normal?

Thanks again,
Leb

EDIT: I noticed the closed button was clickable, so I closed out and re-opened, and retried Applying Settings. Now no progress bar after clicking Apply Changes, the button greys out and it looks to be idle

EDIT EDIT: I looked up fglrx in synaptics and installed, rebooted from there, brightness settings now working! :D
Questions:
1) There is a strange screen flicker when adjusting brightness... it is hard to tell as it flickers for a very short ammount of time but it looks like in between frames during brightness switching the resolution jumps to another resolution and quickly back (I can notice the task bar, and the firefox tabs "jumping" for that millesecond it flickers. Could that be a problem with the drivers I installed?
2) is fglrx more stable than fglrx-updates? I'm using fglrx now
Leb

Re: Brightness Settings - No Effect

Post by Leb »

1) There is a strange screen flicker when adjusting brightness... it is hard to tell as it flickers for a very short ammount of time but it looks like in between frames during brightness switching the resolution jumps to another resolution and quickly back (I can notice the task bar, and the firefox tabs "jumping" for that millesecond it flickers. Could that be a problem with the drivers I installed?
2) is fglrx more stable than fglrx-updates? I'm using fglrx now
Alright pertaining to these respectively..

1) I've found the strange flicker to happen in a few other instances as well.. Turning on "panel edit mode" on the cinnamon bar last night to edit the order of my applets - when moving an applet the flicker would occur and freeze up the PC a little bit. Continuing to play with the applets the flickers continued until the PC totally crashed (no responds from clicks or keyboard inputs).. I did a hard shut down with the power button. Figuring it is a driver issue I then...

2) Uninstalled fglrx using synaptics package manager and installed fglrx-updates, reset - hoping that may solve the issue - however it still remains.

Perhaps this thread should be moved to graphics/drivers? As with the brightness fixed it seems to be some overal driver problem I am having.

I'm going to look for an easy way to do screen capture and place a video here to show what I mean by flickers.

UPDATE: recorded a screencap with shazam, the flicker does not show in the screen cap however... the only thing shown in the recording is my desktop icons briefly disappearing and reappearing when i change the brightness... the rest of the strange tearing artifacts do not show up though. I'm really lost here on this one ladies and gents... any help would be appreciated
Leb

Re: Fixed brightness issue... now graphics tearing?

Post by Leb »

An update to anyone who comes accross this thread seeking help... I've yet to fix it.

Installed beta drivers based on this guide by crushkittykitty (thanks for help on IRC btw crush) and the problem has persisted. If anyone has any insight for next steps please let me know..
shakey_jake33

Re: Fixed brightness issue... now graphics tearing?

Post by shakey_jake33 »

Just posting to say, I have the same problem with the brightness adjust not working, although installing the newest AMD beta driver did not solve the issue. I cannot revert to an older version of the driver because the newest driver from AMD solved some video decoding issues that I previously had.

I am using a netbook with an AMD Radeon 6250M GPU, so this problem might be common to AMD graphics cards. I have tried the two solutions to no avail.

It's really annoying because battery life is obviously important with a netbook.
anandrkris

Re: Fixed brightness issue... now graphics tearing?

Post by anandrkris »

Folks - Came across the below link and just sharing it - you can give it a try...

http://askubuntu.com/questions/198682/c ... abook?rq=1
http://askubuntu.com/questions/247145/b ... -7650?rq=1

Below links help in searching for linux related topics. I find them to be very useful to solve linux related issues. Narrows down the search results by searching only the relevant sites.

http://home.windstream.net/joelwest/
http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=01760 ... _owgx6xyi0
valkyrie

Re:BRIGHTNESS ISSUE.

Post by valkyrie »

i have acer 5560g, with amd a6 3420m apu, 6520g+hd 7470m graphics, similar problem regarding brightness control, none of the combinations of fn+arrow key works.
well, certainly i just installed amd proprietary driver(latest beta), and found myself at better position(much better), at catalyst settings, there is an option to control brightness of the screen, although it has to be changed manually by 1st opening the catalyst, then dragging the bar, but atleast, i can control the brightness even without repeating the reboots!!!!
1 more thing, if one wants to control the brightness, then just try to press the combinations of fn+arrow, while ur system is booting through bios screen or whichever logo it is showing at the 1st look(it's around a 3-5 seconds, when u can control the brightness, after that, u have to do it manually...as i stated above, if that works for u ppl).
Locked

Return to “Beginner Questions”