Asus G73 Backlit keyboard issue

**2briancox** · August 27th, 2011

Well, the bluetooth dongle I plug in is recognized. But my Mouse is the only Bluetooth device I can connect to test it at the moment.

The mouse gets recognized but it always immediately fails on any attempt to pair the device.

**2briancox** · August 30th, 2011

I guess I should have left more information.

I am running Pinguy 11.04 (Ubuntu 11.04) and it came with 2.6.38-9 which runs my bluetooth mouse just fine. But when I upgraded with this specially compiled ASUS keyboard kernel it fails. I thought perhaps I could try my hand at compiling a 2.6.38 kernel with this ASUS keyboard driver as described on the site listed, but I get an error when I try to patch. And I don't know how to continue.

Is there a way to fix the bluetooth issue in the 2.6.39 kernel?

**enzymaticboom** · September 13th, 2011

I got Ubuntu 11.04 to work on my new Asus G73SW but like others the key board backlight is not working and all function keys except for the screen backlight keys (fn+F4/F5) do not work, also the three real buttons at the top of the keyboard do not work.

So I tried the .deb files and procedure above and it ruined my resolution and seemed to go into a safe mode like setting, and the backlight still did not work. Perhaps this is having some effect on my nVidia card? I re-reinstalled 11.04 so that I could get my resolution back (I am sure there was a more simple and less time consuming way, but I am a old-noob). I really do not want to reinstall again, but I would really like the function keys to work and the backlight, but I need the resolution, part of the reason why I bought a new laptop.

Still kinda new at the whole linux thing... (first post to ubuntu forums)

**2briancox** · September 14th, 2011

I also had to remove then reinstall the nVidia driver to get the graphics better.

But if you're having difficulty with the function keys still not functioning then something seems off with the install of the new kernel.

Maybe try the kernel install first? Did you get the most recent version of the kernel image and header?

**force13** · September 17th, 2011

whats up,
ok first I have to say nice work

but im having some issues:
vmware 7.14 and 3.14 wont work in the kernal rc6 or rc7
the mouse lock does not work (fn + f9)
and lastly for some odd reason the wireless card wont auto connect to the internet
this is when first booting or resuming from a suspend

using ubuntu 11.04 on asus g74sx everything else works flawless

the only one that bothers me is the wireless one I know the vmware is not your fault and not your problem to fix

**force13** · September 17th, 2011

um yeah sorry for the double post but

i figured out what was wrong with the wireless (nothing to do with the kernal i might add) but i did find another issue

my resolution was stuck on 1024 x 768 when it should be at 1600 x 900

**alain.roger** · November 8th, 2011

I'm very interested in this solution however i run Ubuntu 11.10 so kernel is v3.0.0-12-generic and the solution here is based on version 2.6.39-rc6_2.6.39-rc6-10.00.

is there an updated version for ubuntu 11.10 ?
thx.

**Bocete** · February 3rd, 2012

+1 on this. Need my keyboard backlight for G74 (but would try a G73 fix) for 3.0.0.14, running Kubuntu 11.10

EDIT:

I found a solution. Run this:

Code:

sudo su
echo 0x00050021 > /sys/kernel/debug/asus-nb-wmi/dev_id
echo 0x82 > /sys/kernel/debug/asus-nb-wmi/ctrl_param
cat /sys/kernel/debug/asus-nb-wmi/devs

And reboot. Backlight will be on, though control buttons for it do not work. I don't mind having the backlight on all the time.

Much more information (with some useful links dead, sadly!)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/553474-g73-asus-wmi-linux-driver-i-need-your-help-6.html#post7470992

- Bo