[Ti X]

Why does the keyboard illumination on my 17" keep adjusting itself automatically?

Periodically I notice that the keyboard will dim on it's own, and I need to manually increase the brightness again. What setting can I change to stop this?

[dettociao]

Originally posted by Ti X:
Why does the keyboard illumination on my 17" keep adjusting itself automatically?

Periodically I notice that the keyboard will dim on it's own, and I need to manually increase the brightness again. What setting can I change to stop this?

I don't have a 17" but my understanding is that it is supposed to do this-- there are ambient light sensors desgined specifically to adjust the brightness for best effect. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. I'd like to know if there's a shareware app or whatnot to change this.

Nate

[xylon]

Yeah, dettociao is right. The two ambient light sensors will constantly change the keyboard illumination as well as the brightness of the monitor whether or not you've made changes manually (by pushing f1, f2... buttons). This actually ticks me off somewhat since I have to crank the keyboard illumination all the way up (its too dim in my opinion) when the lights in my room are lowered and keep having to adjust it if the ambient light levels change.

As for third party apps that take care of this, I haven't heard of any. If anybody hears of them, I'd like to know, but my guess is that the update will have to come from Apple.

[bcaslis]

Originally posted by xylon:
Yeah, dettociao is right. The two ambient light sensors will constantly change the keyboard illumination as well as the brightness of the monitor whether or not you've made changes manually (by pushing f1, f2... buttons).

If you don't want it to do this this, in the Display system preference, uncheck "Automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes" checkbox.

If you use Sherlock and search in the Applecare channel for "PowerBook G4 17"" you will see a knowledge base article on this.

[dettociao]

Originally posted by bcaslis:
If you don't want it to do this this, in the Display system preference, uncheck "Automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes" checkbox.

If you use Sherlock and search in the Applecare channel for "PowerBook G4 17"" you will see a knowledge base article on this.

Thanks for the heads up, bcaslis!

[Ti X]

Originally posted by bcaslis:
If you don't want it to do this this, in the Display system preference, uncheck "Automatically adjust brightness as ambient light changes" checkbox.

If you use Sherlock and search in the Applecare channel for "PowerBook G4 17"" you will see a knowledge base article on this.

Excellent!! Thank you!

I spent an hour looking on k-base last night and could not find anything. Thanks.

[morlium]

the "Automatically adhust brightness as ambient light changes" does not affect the keyboard.

it's only for the LCD itself, which will become brighter in low-light settings (if checked).

as far as i know, there's no way to keep the keyboard's brightness steady.

[bcaslis]

Originally posted by morlium:
the "Automatically adhust brightness as ambient light changes" does not affect the keyboard.

it's only for the LCD itself, which will become brighter in low-light settings (if checked).

as far as i know, there's no way to keep the keyboard's brightness steady.

Actually with ALS, the LCD becomes dimmer in low-light not brighter.

The Apple note on this is at:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86270

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by morlium:
as far as i know, there's no way to keep the keyboard's brightness steady.

I feel your pain - I find the auto-adjustment of the backlight an absolute pain in the neck as well. 99% of the time I find the keyboard backlight will adjust itself to a half-brightness level, perhaps lower. The MAJOR problem with this is that light level makes the lettering appear grey - grey text on grey keys is rather difficult to read!!! Turning off the backlight or turning it up to full brightness (which will then be auto-adjusted back down again later) is the only way to cope, but I'm constantly doing it!!!

I do have good news though - I've found a way to control the backlight to a small extent, but the best I've been able to do is force the thing to stay on at full brightness (which is good) but with the side effect that you can't turn it off (ie keyboard backlight is on 100% of the time). The other thing I managed to do, by accident, is cause the backlight to turn ON in a lit room and OFF in a dark one... whoops Still trying to find a way to leave it auto-on/OFF, but fixed to full brightness. Will let you know when I work it out.

[DVD Plaza]

Originally posted by DVD Plaza:
...99% of the time I find the keyboard backlight will adjust itself to a half-brightness level, perhaps lower. The MAJOR problem with this is that light level makes the lettering appear grey - grey text on grey keys is rather difficult to read!!! Turning off the backlight or turning it up to full brightness (which will then be auto-adjusted back down again later) is the only way to cope, but I'm constantly doing it!!!...

Okay I've finally got it right - making the backlight be full brightness whenever it is on, no more dim lighting making the keys unreadable.

Pop into /users/%username%/library/preferences and open com.apple.bezelservice.plist - change the value of kHWMin to 1 and you're done! Be careful playing with the other settings though - until I finally got this right I was causing my backlight to either be stuck on permanently, not work at all, or (get this!) it was turning ON in the light and turning OFF in the dark!

Hope this helps