ASUS N550JX - how to turn OFF keyboard backlight

[Adam]

Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

[jrg]

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

what BIOs??

[Adam]

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

what BIOS??

Yes, I wish there were a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from
the BIOS...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

Aptio Setup Utility
BIOS Vendor: American Megatrends
Version: 205

Looked through the BIOS, but wasn't able to find a way.

[Paul]

Post by Adam

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

what BIOS??

Yes, I wish there were a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from
the BIOS...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
Aptio Setup Utility
BIOS Vendor: American Megatrends
Version: 205
Looked through the BIOS, but wasn't able to find a way.

Not documented in the fine PDF manual.

Documented in a FAQ entry (and given the generic nature
of all the items in the FAQ, probably not verified on
this model of laptop either).

https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1014790/

"Check the F3 and F4 key for any backlight keyboard symbols.
Enable the the backlight by pressing Fn and F4 at the same
time (Fn+F4)"

A guess would be (Fn+F3) to turn off, (Fn+F4) to turn on.

Good luck,
Paul

[Adam]

Post by Paul

Post by Adam

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

what BIOS??

Yes, I wish there were a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from
the BIOS...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
Aptio Setup Utility
BIOS Vendor: American Megatrends
Version: 205
Looked through the BIOS, but wasn't able to find a way.

Not documented in the fine PDF manual.
Documented in a FAQ entry (and given the generic nature
of all the items in the FAQ, probably not verified on
this model of laptop either).
https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1014790/
"Check the F3 and F4 key for any backlight keyboard symbols.
Enable the the backlight by pressing Fn and F4 at the same
time (Fn+F4)"
A guess would be (Fn+F3) to turn off, (Fn+F4) to turn on.
Good luck,
Paul

Thanks (Guru Paul), but Fn+F3 acts more like a dimmer and
is not permanent. I tried that before looking through the BIOS for
a way to disable keyboard backlight permanently.
For aluminum exterior, keyboard backlight is awful.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by Adam
Thanks (Guru Paul), but Fn+F3 acts more like a dimmer and
is not permanent. I tried that before looking through the BIOS for
a way to disable keyboard backlight permanently.
For aluminum exterior, keyboard backlight is awful.

Keyboard backlight settings can sometimes be changed when running
Linux from the system settings (I was going to say in the /proc/acpi
directory, but things seem to have moved on).

Here's a forum thread where an ASUS laptop user wants to disable
the keyboard backlight in Ubuntu:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/745856/turn-off-keyboard-backlight-asus-laptop-ubuntu-15-10

Here's some detailed information for Arch Linux about changing
keyboard light brightness on another ASUS laptop:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_Zenbook_Prime_UX31A#Keyboard_backlight

[Adam]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by Adam
Thanks (Guru Paul), but Fn+F3 acts more like a dimmer and
is not permanent. I tried that before looking through the BIOS for
a way to disable keyboard backlight permanently.
For aluminum exterior, keyboard backlight is awful.

Keyboard backlight settings can sometimes be changed when running
Linux from the system settings (I was going to say in the /proc/acpi
directory, but things seem to have moved on).
Here's a forum thread where an ASUS laptop user wants to disable
http://askubuntu.com/questions/745856/turn-off-keyboard-backlight-asus-laptop-ubuntu-15-10
Here's some detailed information for Arch Linux about changing
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_Zenbook_Prime_UX31A#Keyboard_backlight
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

Thanks, yes, in linux, there's practically nothing you cannot configure.
I was hoping for a simple "works for ANY OS" solution after learning
about...

/sys/class/leds/asus::kbd_backlight/

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime#Keyboard_functions_.28Brightness.2Cvolume.2C....29

[Paul]

Post by Adam

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by Adam
Thanks (Guru Paul), but Fn+F3 acts more like a dimmer and
is not permanent. I tried that before looking through the BIOS for
a way to disable keyboard backlight permanently.
For aluminum exterior, keyboard backlight is awful.

Keyboard backlight settings can sometimes be changed when running
Linux from the system settings (I was going to say in the /proc/acpi
directory, but things seem to have moved on).
Here's a forum thread where an ASUS laptop user wants to disable
http://askubuntu.com/questions/745856/turn-off-keyboard-backlight-asus-laptop-ubuntu-15-10
Here's some detailed information for Arch Linux about changing
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_Zenbook_Prime_UX31A#Keyboard_backlight
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

Thanks, yes, in linux, there's practically nothing you cannot configure.
I was hoping for a simple "works for ANY OS" solution after learning
about...
/sys/class/leds/asus::kbd_backlight/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime#Keyboard_functions_.28Brightness.2Cvolume.2C....29

In that article, is one keyword that stands out - "Powertop".

It's not that PowerTop has a control for the keyboard backlight.
It's that PowerTop is supposed to adjust machines for lowest
power consumption. If you had an OS release that seemed to
burn through a battery rapidly, PowerTop can advise as to
what is going on. My *theory* would be, a keyboard backlight
is a waste of electricity, and it may be detected as such
in the ACPI tables. And perhaps PowerTop can find a way
to turn it off or something - so PowerTop wouldn't
give you graded controls, it potentially might turn
it off.

It's also possible PowerTop cannot see this, unless
the boot option "acpi_osi=" thing was added.

Other than that, you'll need to get your hands dirty, to
get it to work (i.e. next time there is an OS upgrade,
you might have to re-implement whatever fix you end up
using).

Paul

[Adam]

Post by Paul

Post by Adam

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by Adam
Thanks (Guru Paul), but Fn+F3 acts more like a dimmer and
is not permanent. I tried that before looking through the BIOS for
a way to disable keyboard backlight permanently.
For aluminum exterior, keyboard backlight is awful.

Keyboard backlight settings can sometimes be changed when running
Linux from the system settings (I was going to say in the /proc/acpi
directory, but things seem to have moved on).
Here's a forum thread where an ASUS laptop user wants to disable
http://askubuntu.com/questions/745856/turn-off-keyboard-backlight-asus-laptop-ubuntu-15-10
Here's some detailed information for Arch Linux about changing
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ASUS_Zenbook_Prime_UX31A#Keyboard_backlight
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

Thanks, yes, in linux, there's practically nothing you cannot configure.
I was hoping for a simple "works for ANY OS" solution after learning
about...
/sys/class/leds/asus::kbd_backlight/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime#Keyboard_functions_.28Brightness.2Cvolume.2C....29

In that article, is one keyword that stands out - "Powertop".
It's not that PowerTop has a control for the keyboard backlight.
It's that PowerTop is supposed to adjust machines for lowest
power consumption. If you had an OS release that seemed to
burn through a battery rapidly, PowerTop can advise as to
what is going on. My *theory* would be, a keyboard backlight
is a waste of electricity, and it may be detected as such
in the ACPI tables. And perhaps PowerTop can find a way
to turn it off or something - so PowerTop wouldn't
give you graded controls, it potentially might turn
it off.

Aren't LEDs very-very low power?

Couldn't some nice BIOS engineer just add an option to disable keyboard
backlight? :-)

Post by Paul
It's also possible PowerTop cannot see this, unless
the boot option "acpi_osi=" thing was added.
Other than that, you'll need to get your hands dirty, to
get it to work (i.e. next time there is an OS upgrade,
you might have to re-implement whatever fix you end up
using).
Paul

[Paul]

Post by Adam
Aren't LEDs very-very low power?

You will never be a successful Power Miser engineer
with thinking like this. Every milliamp counts when
you're making the laptop battery last four hours.
No saving is too small.

Post by Adam
Couldn't some nice BIOS engineer just add an option to disable keyboard
backlight? :-)

Two parties are involved in the BIOS.

Companies like AMI, Award, Phoenix, Insyde,
write basic BIOS kits for hardware development.
Presumably there is a per-unit license fee,
when the BIOS ships. Some of the lesser hardware
companies, put in their literature "licensed BIOS"
to highlight the fact they actually paid the
license fee :-) At one time, there were companies
that released a BIOS with their product, where
they didn't actually have the rights to it. At
one time, there was even a no-name manufacturer
making fake Asus motherboards :-) And the BIOS
on those wasn't licensed. The whole thing was
cloned.

Asus or Gigabyte or HP or Dell, they can write their
own custom BIOS code if they want. But normally this
is a small small fraction of the code base. And when
AMI, Award, Phoenix, Insyde release a kit, they
don't necessarily give source. If they did, unscrupulous
hardware companies could go off and do derivative works
without paying any fees. As a result, some BIOS bugs
are "hard" to fix, as the BIOS companies themselves release
the bug fix. Other bug fixes, Asus can implement them
immediately (tuning DIMM timings for stable operation,
adding CPU microcode for newer released Intel processors).

So it's a team effort.

The BIOS "kit" has multiple settings. Asus can
hide and unhide settings in the screen. The older the
BIOS company is, the more ornate the BIOS screens.
The newer companies have practically no interface
at all in theirs. And it really isn't needed.
That's why my Insyde BIOS laptop, has a grand
total of *one* setting :-) You need a big screen
layout, to handle that baby.

Paul

[Adam]

Post by Paul

Post by Adam
Aren't LEDs very-very low power?

You will never be a successful Power Miser engineer
with thinking like this. Every milliamp counts when
you're making the laptop battery last four hours.
No saving is too small.

Post by Adam
Couldn't some nice BIOS engineer just add an option to disable keyboard
backlight? :-)

Two parties are involved in the BIOS.
Companies like AMI, Award, Phoenix, Insyde,
write basic BIOS kits for hardware development.
Presumably there is a per-unit license fee,
when the BIOS ships. Some of the lesser hardware
companies, put in their literature "licensed BIOS"
to highlight the fact they actually paid the
license fee :-) At one time, there were companies
that released a BIOS with their product, where
they didn't actually have the rights to it. At
one time, there was even a no-name manufacturer
making fake Asus motherboards :-) And the BIOS
on those wasn't licensed. The whole thing was
cloned.
Asus or Gigabyte or HP or Dell, they can write their
own custom BIOS code if they want. But normally this
is a small small fraction of the code base. And when
AMI, Award, Phoenix, Insyde release a kit, they
don't necessarily give source. If they did, unscrupulous
hardware companies could go off and do derivative works
without paying any fees. As a result, some BIOS bugs
are "hard" to fix, as the BIOS companies themselves release
the bug fix. Other bug fixes, Asus can implement them
immediately (tuning DIMM timings for stable operation,
adding CPU microcode for newer released Intel processors).
So it's a team effort.
The BIOS "kit" has multiple settings. Asus can
hide and unhide settings in the screen. The older the

Hopefully, the keyboard backlight setting is
already in the BIOS "kit" and it's easy for Asus to unhide the setting.

With the keyboard backlight ON, there is insufficient contrast so
I can't tell what the keys are.

For now, the easiest method may be through...

/sys/class/leds/asus::kbd_backlight/

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime

Post by Paul
BIOS company is, the more ornate the BIOS screens.
The newer companies have practically no interface
at all in theirs. And it really isn't needed.
That's why my Insyde BIOS laptop, has a grand
total of *one* setting :-) You need a big screen
layout, to handle that baby.
Paul

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by Adam
Aren't LEDs very-very low power?

Compared to your old filament light bulb, yes. Compared to most
digital electronics they use a lot of power. Presumably some clever
design has gone into the LED backlight to allow them to illuminate
every key with either a small number of individual LEDs, or lots of
high brightness LEDs running far under their rated power. Then the
electronics will be designed to supply this power as efficiently as
possible. But in any case I expect the power consumption would be
noteworthy.

I liked the single LED keyboard light on IBM Thinkpads. Very simple,
but able to make the keyboard labels nicely visible in the dark (as
long as you can find the keys to turn it on :) ).

Post by Adam
Couldn't some nice BIOS engineer just add an option to disable keyboard
backlight? :-)

Get friendly with one of the Coreboot developers?

[Adam]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by Adam
Aren't LEDs very-very low power?

Compared to your old filament light bulb, yes. Compared to most
digital electronics they use a lot of power. Presumably some clever
design has gone into the LED backlight to allow them to illuminate
every key with either a small number of individual LEDs, or lots of
high brightness LEDs running far under their rated power. Then the
electronics will be designed to supply this power as efficiently as
possible. But in any case I expect the power consumption would be
noteworthy.

Really? No wonder Guru Paul said I wasn't miserly enough.
Guess I need to try harder than I already do. :-)

Okay, so now I need to educate myself about
how to set miserly thresholds in that ACPI table (?) for
keyboard backlight so that it will stay OFF.

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I liked the single LED keyboard light on IBM Thinkpads. Very simple,
but able to make the keyboard labels nicely visible in the dark (as
long as you can find the keys to turn it on :) ).

Post by Adam
Couldn't some nice BIOS engineer just add an option to disable keyboard
backlight? :-)

Get friendly with one of the Coreboot developers?
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

[Paul]

Post by Adam
Really? No wonder Guru Paul said I wasn't miserly enough.
Guess I need to try harder than I already do. :-)

It's your project now.

And we need an answer by Friday :-)
(An old "boss" technique for motivating employees.)

Paul

[DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno]

Post by Paul

Post by Adam
Really? No wonder Guru Paul said I wasn't miserly enough.
Guess I need to try harder than I already do. :-)

It's your project now.
And we need an answer by Friday :-)
(An old "boss" technique for motivating employees.)
Paul

http://dilbert.com/strip/2013-07-26

[Adam]

Post by Paul

Post by Adam
Really? No wonder Guru Paul said I wasn't miserly enough.
Guess I need to try harder than I already do. :-)

It's your project now.
And we need an answer by Friday :-)
(An old "boss" technique for motivating employees.)

Which Friday? :-)
(An old technique for buying more time.)

Post by Paul
Paul

[DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno]

Post by Adam

Post by Computer Nerd Kev

Post by Adam
Aren't LEDs very-very low power?

Compared to your old filament light bulb, yes. Compared to most
digital electronics they use a lot of power. Presumably some clever
design has gone into the LED backlight to allow them to illuminate
every key with either a small number of individual LEDs, or lots of
high brightness LEDs running far under their rated power. Then the
electronics will be designed to supply this power as efficiently as
possible. But in any case I expect the power consumption would be
noteworthy.

Really? No wonder Guru Paul said I wasn't miserly enough.
Guess I need to try harder than I already do. :-)
Okay, so now I need to educate myself about
how to set miserly thresholds in that ACPI table (?) for
keyboard backlight so that it will stay OFF.

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I liked the single LED keyboard light on IBM Thinkpads. Very simple,
but able to make the keyboard labels nicely visible in the dark (as
long as you can find the keys to turn it on :) ).

Post by Adam
Couldn't some nice BIOS engineer just add an option to disable keyboard
backlight? :-)

Get friendly with one of the Coreboot developers?
--

Open up the display panel, and put a break in either feed wire and run
the wires out to a hard switch. :-)

(or find the wires down in the lower section of the unit)

Guaranteed to work 100% of the time.

Just so you know... the LED Kybd lamp is NOT a peripheral, so I
removed the group.

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
[snipped]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I liked the single LED keyboard light on IBM Thinkpads. Very simple,
but able to make the keyboard labels nicely visible in the dark (as
long as you can find the keys to turn it on :) ).

I never did have any trouble with that. With my current ThinkPad, a (15" 4:3
UXGA IPS display) T60, the last of the great ThinkPads IMO, it's bottom left
and top right keys together. ;)

[Dirk T. Verbeek]

Post by ~misfit~
[snipped]

Post by Computer Nerd Kev
I liked the single LED keyboard light on IBM Thinkpads. Very simple,
but able to make the keyboard labels nicely visible in the dark (as
long as you can find the keys to turn it on :) ).

I never did have any trouble with that. With my current ThinkPad, a (15" 4:3
UXGA IPS display) T60, the last of the great ThinkPads IMO, it's bottom left
and top right keys together. ;)

Same on this W520, on the 430s it's Alt+Space, again pretty easy even in
the dark.

[Chris Ahlstrom]

Post by Adam

Post by Paul

Post by Adam

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

what BIOS??

Yes, I wish there were a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from
the BIOS...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
Aptio Setup Utility
BIOS Vendor: American Megatrends
Version: 205
Looked through the BIOS, but wasn't able to find a way.

Not documented in the fine PDF manual.
Documented in a FAQ entry (and given the generic nature
of all the items in the FAQ, probably not verified on
this model of laptop either).
https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1014790/
"Check the F3 and F4 key for any backlight keyboard symbols.
Enable the the backlight by pressing Fn and F4 at the same
time (Fn+F4)"
A guess would be (Fn+F3) to turn off, (Fn+F4) to turn on.

Thanks (Guru Paul), but Fn+F3 acts more like a dimmer and
is not permanent. I tried that before looking through the BIOS for
a way to disable keyboard backlight permanently.
For aluminum exterior, keyboard backlight is awful.

My ASUS N551JQ powers up with the backlight off. The backlight keys work
fine (Debian Sid; but other keys I've had to bind little scripts to 'em).

I would warn you that the key logos start to wear out amazingly quickly.
I would advise some kind of key covering if you start noticing the wear.
I waited too long, and now I have about 10 keys covered with opaque sticks,
which hold up to wear much better than the keys themselves.

It also has the shitty "one-button" trackpads that seem to be all the rage
these days. No buttons, just one surface, with a painted on line to remind
you about the ability to left and right clock. No way to get a
middle-click.

No more ASUS for me.

[Adam]

Post by Chris Ahlstrom

Post by Adam

Post by Paul

Post by Adam

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

what BIOS??

Yes, I wish there were a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from
the BIOS...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
Aptio Setup Utility
BIOS Vendor: American Megatrends
Version: 205
Looked through the BIOS, but wasn't able to find a way.

Not documented in the fine PDF manual.
Documented in a FAQ entry (and given the generic nature
of all the items in the FAQ, probably not verified on
this model of laptop either).
https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1014790/
"Check the F3 and F4 key for any backlight keyboard symbols.
Enable the the backlight by pressing Fn and F4 at the same
time (Fn+F4)"
A guess would be (Fn+F3) to turn off, (Fn+F4) to turn on.

Thanks (Guru Paul), but Fn+F3 acts more like a dimmer and
is not permanent. I tried that before looking through the BIOS for
a way to disable keyboard backlight permanently.
For aluminum exterior, keyboard backlight is awful.

My ASUS N551JQ powers up with the backlight off. The backlight keys work
fine (Debian Sid; but other keys I've had to bind little scripts to 'em).

Why isn't there a system setting to OFF keyboard backlight? :-)

Post by Chris Ahlstrom
I would warn you that the key logos start to wear out amazingly quickly.
I would advise some kind of key covering if you start noticing the wear.
I waited too long, and now I have about 10 keys covered with opaque sticks,
which hold up to wear much better than the keys themselves.

Thanks, I better attach an external keyboard and mouse to mine as soon as
I'm done setting it up. So, I guess I can forget about even the keyboard
backlight.
I'll just be annoyed on occasions when I need to take the heavy laptop on
the road.

Post by Chris Ahlstrom
It also has the shitty "one-button" trackpads that seem to be all the rage
these days. No buttons, just one surface, with a painted on line to remind
you about the ability to left and right clock. No way to get a
middle-click.
No more ASUS for me.

I was happy with my old laptop (from September 2010, which still works
great)...

ASUS N61JQ-X1 16-Inch Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Core i7-720QM Quad-Core
Processor, 4GB DDR3, 320GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium) Dark Brown

But, this new laptop...

ASUS N550JX-TH72T Gaming Laptop - Intel Core i7 4720HQ 2.6GHz Quad-Core,
16GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M 2GB DDR3, 15.6" FHD Display,
Windows 10 64-Bit - N550JX-TH72T

was on rebate at a good price so I bought it to maybe replace my desktop for
energy efficiency.

I prefer the exterior of my old laptop. ASUS should stick with what they do
best,
which is build quality electronics rather than to imitate the aluminum
exterior.

Post by Chris Ahlstrom
--
You're definitely on their list. The question to ask next is what list it is.

[Dirk T. Verbeek]

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

Isn't there a key combination?

[Adam]

Post by Dirk T. Verbeek

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

Isn't there a key combination?

Yes, Fn+F3 acts like a dimmer. But, as soon as the laptop reboots,
something automatically turns keyboard backlight back ON,
undoing my previous dimming.

[Paul]

Post by Adam

Post by Dirk T. Verbeek

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

Isn't there a key combination?

Yes, Fn+F3 acts like a dimmer. But, as soon as the laptop reboots,
something automatically turns keyboard backlight back ON,
undoing my previous dimming.

On an entirely different laptop model, but
with JX option, the behavior is both BIOS
mediated and also mapped as an ACPI object
(as ATKACPI has access to it). I expect in
either case, each time the machine starts,
it uses a BIOS code default, and doesn't
"remember" the previous session. Check the
release notes on support.asus.com for your
model, and see if they made any behavior
changes in a later release.

https://rog.asus.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-37428.html

The machine has plenty of storage possibilities,
if they wanted to record the setting for next time.

Paul

[Adam]

Post by Paul

Post by Adam

Post by Dirk T. Verbeek

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

Isn't there a key combination?

Yes, Fn+F3 acts like a dimmer. But, as soon as the laptop reboots,
something automatically turns keyboard backlight back ON,
undoing my previous dimming.

On an entirely different laptop model, but
with JX option, the behavior is both BIOS
mediated and also mapped as an ACPI object
(as ATKACPI has access to it). I expect in

Thanks, from the forum thread link you provided (below),
it sounds like the ATKACPI driver decides when
to turn ON keyboard backlight and TIMEOUT value.
There is no setting that the user can control.

Post by Paul
either case, each time the machine starts,
it uses a BIOS code default, and doesn't
"remember" the previous session. Check the
release notes on support.asus.com for your
model, and see if they made any behavior
changes in a later release.
https://rog.asus.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-37428.html
The machine has plenty of storage possibilities,
if they wanted to record the setting for next time.
Paul

[Dirk T. Verbeek]

Post by Adam
Is there a way to turn OFF keyboard backlight from BIOS ?

No.

I've read the various ideas in this thread but miss one.

There's a video on Youtube that shows the workings of the screen:

This means the setting of the backlight is saved as part of the desktop
restore.
That's obviously for Windows.

But chance is your Linux DE can do the same, is your system set up to
restore the last DE configuration?