[CUBE] Brightness-control

[Leif Joel Örell]

Sorry about the misspelling of Brightness ( I am dyslectic ).

The brightness control from version tracker really works like a charm, 
thank you.

The point thou is what is wrong with either my monitor or the 
graphic-card or Cube since I have 1/2 a year left of my Apple Care.
I thought that it might be some connection problem so I turned off the 
Cube and unplugged the monitor and then I had the brightness control 
back for a while, now it is gone again. Might be some kind of 
connection or initialization problem.

Joel


2004-04-12 kl. 18.39 skrev Steve Goldstein:

> http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17670
>
> Freeware.  Works like a charm!  --Steve

I also got this from Brett:

Joel,

I am posting this off list in order to keep my email address private 
and avoid getting spammed.

The Mac is supposed to add the brightness control slider to the screen 
preference panel when it "recognizes" a monitor which supports software 
controlled brightness.

I run an original 22" Cinema Display with my Cube. I developed a 
similar problem a few months ago just before I upgraded from Jaguar to 
Panther (which did not fix the problem).

At first, rebooting would restore the brightness control.  After a few 
hours of use I would discover that the brightness control had stopped 
working or gone away.  Now even rebooting doesn't help.  Sometimes the 
control is there, but it doesn't work. The slider is at the max 
position even though the actual brightness is not maxed out.  I can 
drag the slider to the left, but it always snaps back the max position. 
  Likewise, the F14 and F15 keys no longer control brightness.  At least 
the monitor's own brightness controls (which are actual buttons and not 
touch switches) still function, but I miss the convenience of function 
key control.

The Genius at the local Apple store was unhelpful, as was AppleCare 
telephone support.  They had me reset the nonvolatile RAM (PRAM), and 
log in as a different user, which made no difference.

I may just live with it until OS-X 10.4 is released, at which time I'll 
do an archive and install.

The fact that your monitor's own controls don't work suggests that 
perhaps the monitor is at fault. You might want to try your monitor 
with a different Mac to confirm this.

If I learn more I'll share it with you.

-----
News Flash!

Writing this response got me thinking.  If the Mac senses the type of 
monitor and provides brightness control accordingly, maybe I could fool 
it into reinitializing itself by disconnecting and reconnecting the 
monitor.  So I shut down, disconnected and then reconnected the monitor 
cable.  The Cube's power light blinked once which surprised me.  I then 
booted up, and for the first time in months, I again have functioning 
brightness!  Only time will tell if it will stay fixed.

My computer has always been under constant power. I suspect that 
shutting down and then unplugging the Cube's power cord for a few 
minutes would have had the same effect of causing some low level 
monitor initialization to occur.

It couldn't hurt to try this.

It it works, and you want to post the suggestion back to the list, 
please keep my address private.

Good luck.

--Brett