screen dims at random times on Dell Laptop

[spearfish]

Hi,

I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. I just installed Ubuntu 8.10 and I am having an issue with the monitor going to half-brightness at random times.

It's really annoying. The screen brightness will change (go dim) and I will change the brightness back to full level immediately. Then 5 seconds later the screen dims again, all by itself. This happens when I'm typing an e-mail, as well as when the system is idle.

It's like I have to fight with the system; it wants my system to be at half-brightness and changes it randomly.

Anyone else have this problem?

Thanks

[tamas305]

I also run Ubuntu on a Dell laptop and this happens on my machine as well. This is an energy-saving feature of Ubuntu but it can be disabled. Ubuntu is not the most energy conserving of the OSes so I keep it on. However, if you are adamant about turning it off then here is how...

Go to System --> Preferences --> Power Management. Under the "On battery" tab there are two options, both I believe are activated by default. One is to reduce backlight brightness (your problem, I believe) and the other is to dim the display on idle.

-tamas

[nobodyzhome]

I have a Dell 630m and am having this same issue. Has there been any progress on a solution yet?

[upchucky]

check the bios and disable any power settings it may have in there. try the machine again if it still has dimming then boot the machine with a live cd, if it still does the dimming thing then it is not a software issue, as the os power settings are only done in the actual hard-drive install.

if the dimming still happens when running from the live cd, then the backlight for the display is starting to fail. if this is true, and you are still under warranty, remove the hard-drive and send for repair, they use their own live cds to test systems and do not need a hard-drive in the machine. If you send it for warranty repair and the problem is on the hard drive then they are gonna bill you for the repair.

[crobar]

If it makes you feel better (and helps track down the problem) this also happens on my Dell laptop running Windows XP.