dimmed screen on laptop after Natty installation

[danuntu]

After a fresh install of Natty on an emachine laptop, the screen is completely dimmed. I don't even see the login without shining a flashlight on the screen. I installed 10.04 to see what would happen, and it installed fine. no problems with the screen brightness. I even tried changing all power profiles and brightness levels i could find.

is this an Xorg problem, a hardware or driver problem? I have to use the Alternate CD to install. The Live CD is even dimmed when i try to use it.

Thanks
danuntu

[sithlord48]

Re: dimmed screen on laptop after Natty installation

does your machine have hardware buttons to incresse the backlight (i.e mine uses Fn+ UP/DOWN) perhaps yours is just set low?

[danuntu]

Re: dimmed screen on laptop after Natty installation

yes tried that several times. i think it has something to do with the specific driver for this video card.

i can connect a vga monitor to it and i can see the desktop clearly. but to change back to the laptop display the screen stays dimmed.

i don't know where to start to solve this!

[danuntu]

Re: dimmed screen on laptop after Natty installation

ok i booted the Live CD. hit F6 and use the nomodeset option. It booted with a normal bright screen. what's up with that?

how can i use that on a normal installed boot. Or does that point to a possible solution?

[sithlord48]

Re: dimmed screen on laptop after Natty installation

do you have a properitary driver availble for that system?
when all booted up look in jockey the additional drivers tool

[danuntu]

Re: dimmed screen on laptop after Natty installation

the only proprietary drivers are the Broadcomm STA drivers. I did have trouble with my wireless connection at first. But after an update all wireless problems went away.

the dimmed screen issue is always present, unless I connect a vga monitor.

Would sure like to resolve this.

Thanks

EDIT: i'm just about ready to change OS's on this laptop and DON'T want to

[Snowhog]

Re: dimmed screen on laptop after Natty installation

If you boot into recovery mode from the Grub menu, is the brightness of the laptop display normal - can you read the text? If 'yes,' then you can add the 'nomodset' kernel option to /etc/default/grub (or grub.conf - sorry, I'm not working at my Linux laptop -- on vaction and working on my brothers Windows desktop), save the file and rebuild the grub menu with:

sudo update-grub