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ASUS G73JH keyboard backlighting... WORKING!

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RehabMan

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FYI.. This thread split from this original: http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-h...isable-trackpad-laptop-ml-10-8-2-install.html

Thanks again. The 1.7.7 works in disabling the touchpad with Fn-sysreq key. None of the other keys work but i will dive into the wiki.

Hopefully at some point in the future you might find the solution on enabling the backlights on the G73JH keyboard as this is the sole only thing not working at all. Other than that my system appears to be running totally fine. :)

You would have to find some information on how the keyboard backlight is manipulated. If the backlight works on Linux, then there is hope of finding the source code and the details of how it works.

Direct link to working solution: http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-...yboard-backlighting-working-3.html#post532117
 
How to completely disable trackpad on laptop with ML 10.8.2 install/Enable G73 Keyboard backlights

You would have to find some information on how the keyboard backlight is manipulated. If the backlight works on Linux, then there is hope of finding the source code and the details of how it works.

Yep yesterday I booted up my ubuntu live USB stick (with the current latest version) and noticed in fact the keyboard is fully lit. I will dive into that soon as it is incredibly annoying being used to see what key you are pressing as oposed to hitting the wrong keys all the time.
 
How to completely disable trackpad on laptop with ML 10.8.2 install

Seems this guy actually has written a few scripts that seem to work on linux. I have no clue in how much work would be involved in getting them to run on mac osx tho...

https://github.com/ktoso/g73-keyboard-backlight-sh/

from

http://www.blog.project13.pl/index.php/fun/1163/g73-keayboard-backlight-scripts/

These scripts just write to a device which controls the backlight. But that at least means that device driver code to manipulate the light exists. You can see it in the light_.sh:

Code:
echo $1 > /sys/class/leds/asus::kbd_backlight/brightness

So, find the source to /sys/class/leds/asus::kbd_backlight/brightness. I did a little bit of searching and it looks like your backlight might be controlled by DSDT methods: SLKB and GLKB. Do you see those methods in your DSDT? If so, it would not be difficult to write some code to call them. Do you have C++ coding experience?
 
How to completely disable trackpad on laptop with ML 10.8.2 install

Unfortunately my C++ coding experience is very limited. Too limited I'm afraid to attempt this myself.

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1689936.html

2n part of that page seems to contain links to even the code to control it... I will dig further tho.. Keyboard backlights are something that isn't working for anyone outthere it seems.. At least for the G73 series or even other series too. So far I've seen no reports anywhere from someone who got it working. But not sure how much of an attempt was made to try it.

These are entries in my DSDT:

Method (SLKB, 1, NotSerialized)
{
Store (And (Arg0, 0x7F), KBLV)
If (And (Arg0, 0x80))
{
Store (DerefOf (Index (PWKB, KBLV)), Local0)
}
Else
{
Store (Zero, Local0)
}
^^PCI0.SBRG.EC0.WRAM (0x044B, Local0)
}


Method (GLKB, 1, NotSerialized)
{
If (LEqual (Arg0, One))
{
Store (^^PCI0.SBRG.EC0.RRAM (0x0449), Local0)
And (Local0, 0x02, Local0)
If (Local0)
{
Return (One)
}
Else
{
Return (Zero)
}
}
Else
{
If (LEqual (Arg0, 0x02))
{
Return (KBLV)
}
Else
{
If (LEqual (Arg0, 0x03))
{
Return (0x80)
}
}
}
Return (Ones)
}

I may have missed a quote here or there tho...
 
How to completely disable trackpad on laptop with ML 10.8.2 install

This link seems to be the patch to handle the kbd light for Linux: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/44491/

It would probably not be that difficult to add some code to the keyboard driver to call the DSDT methods, using the code referenced in the link as a guide, then wire that up to a couple of dedicated keys for up/down. Does your keyboard have keys for this?

BTW, the DSDT methods might need a bit of tweaking depending on the width of the EC fields it is accessing: WRAM, RRAM.
 
How to completely disable trackpad on laptop with ML 10.8.2 install

Yep my keyboard has standard Fn keys for increasing and decreasing backlight brightness (Fn-F3 for down and Fn-F4 for up).

I see there is reference to a U50VG laptop. Not sure how that would translate to the G73JH but as you say, DSDT could be the way. Just wish my C++ schoolbook knowledge wasn't so very very rusty.
 
How to completely disable trackpad on laptop with ML 10.8.2 install

I would assume that it should be possible to make it work easily.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1461454&highlight=keyboard+backlight

Unfortunately even after registering I am unable to download the archive in the first post (not that I would be able to use it anyway but still).

Seems to get even better:

https://launchpad.net/asus-keyboard-backlight

Yup. I'm pretty sure the ACPI methods can be used to query/set brightness. The patch post I found shows how to invoke the ACPI functions. GLKB is invoked with Arg0=2, return value is current setting), and SLKB is invoked with Arg0=new setting. Makes sense from looking at the DSDT code too. The only thing to verify would be the proper range of values (look at those scripts, and look at that PWKB table as the param sent to SLKB is being used as an index into that table) and to be sure the DSDT code references any EC fields as 8-bit (would need to look at that WRAM method, or just try it and see what happens).

If you look at my code for the keyboard driver, you will see some references to ACPI_BRIGHTNESS. This is where I attempted to call ACPI methods in the Probook DSDT to manipulate the screen brightness. It didn't work because the methods were doing some strange stuff, perhaps calling into BIOS methods, or WMI methods or something. But you can see the basics of calling ACPI methods.
 
How to completely disable trackpad on laptop with ML 10.8.2 install

Yeah hopefully someone will see this thread/post and will attempt to get this working as I don't see myself making it work but I will surely dig as much as I can to get to the bottom of this. :)
 
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