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10.4.6 kills powerbook keyboard backlight?

TheMac19

TheMac19

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 13, 2004
171
0
Pitt
I know this is not happening to everyone, but it certainly is to some. After upgrading to 10.4.6, the backlit keyboard on my powerbook will no longer light up! If I press the F8, F9, or F10 keys, it just shows the translucent black box with a no-go symbol. (see below for screenshot)

I'm on a 15" powerbook G4, 1.5ghz. turning on and off the backlight via system preferences does nothing. The screen still dims when the ambient light decreases, but no love for the keyboard.

Anyone else have this happening to them? Or not happening to them with the same machine?
 

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I have a PB15 1.5GHz G4 also and I had this same problem. However a reboot fixed it for me. I edited my post in the 10.4.6 thread to reflect this.
 
this may sound silly and be an obvious answer, but make sure that you are in a dark room. if there is too much ambient light, the backlight is automatically disabled and can not be turned on until the ambient light is lowered.
 
Okay, after several restarts, now my backlighting seems okay now. Definitely different than before the update, but fine.

Yes indeed, now it will only work in darkness... Before the update I could turn on the backlighting whenever I wanted to, but now it will only turn on when the ambient light detector senses low light.

Fair enough, onward ho. now if my k700i would be sorted as easily...
 
One more reason not to install Tiger on my pb. There have beens everal posts stating that every version of Tiger since 10.4.3 gives problems with Sudden Motion Sensor, which is a very big feature IMO. I am not going to upgrade to Tiger until this is fixed.
 
I confirm, my backlit is okay, and I upgraded to 10.4.6 couple of days ago.
 
Eluon said:
how do you even know if the sudden motion sensor is working?
Click to expand...

Go in the system profiler, click Hardware and you can see if it's enabled...can't really tell if it's "working" unless you want to chuck your computer and see what happens. :eek:
 
Eluon said:
how do you even know if the sudden motion sensor is working?
Click to expand...
Under the first screen in system Profile, the last 2 items in the list are normally

Sudden Motion Sensor: Enabled
Sudden Motion Sensor Version: 1.0

Under Tiger, these lines are missing after a cold boot. A warm boot seems to bring these back.
 
Found solution

TheMac19 said:
I know this is not happening to everyone, but it certainly is to some. After upgrading to 10.4.6, the backlit keyboard on my powerbook will no longer light up! If I press the F8, F9, or F10 keys, it just shows the translucent black box with a no-go symbol. (see below for screenshot)

I'm on a 15" powerbook G4, 1.5ghz. turning on and off the backlight via system preferences does nothing. The screen still dims when the ambient light decreases, but no love for the keyboard.

Anyone else have this happening to them? Or not happening to them with the same machine?
Click to expand...

Well, I was having the same problem, I have a Powerbook G4 that had the keyboard stop lighting, so I checked the hardware through a Hardware test which did not find any issues with my Mac.
After reading a lot of Internet Postings I found out that the problem was the upgrade for OS 10.4.6.
I reloaded the update through Library/Receipts/MacOSXUpd10.4.6PPC.pkg.
This came up with a window that looked like an installation, after I went through all the screens it said that it had a problem installing and to try again.
I just restarted my Mac, went through 2 restarts (like it did whenever I installed the upgrade the first time) and then voila! the backlit keyboard works again.
Try that and tell me if it worked for you
 
Same problems here

Having trouble with keyboard backlight ever since the last OSX update i think
I notice the backlight doesnt lightup when its dark.. after a restart it comes back on if its dark.. only everynow and then it disappears again.. i have the idea its after a standby that it occurs..
I have my laptop running and flip it closed then open it up later and my backlight gives me a no go signal when pressing F8 F9 or F10... i've been looking around on the web for methods to force the backlight but all without success.. tried the "defaults write com.apple.bezelservices kHWmin 1" command but no reaction.. it al started after the installation of one of the updates...


[Update]
Ok i downloaded the 10.4.6 update from the apple site installed it without a problem...
Started up..
Logged in without problems..
Fiddeld alot with the working keyboard backlight...
Turned off room light keyboard lit up.. turned light back on and keyboard went off..
fiddled around with F8 F9 and F10 and room light and all worked normally...
made sure keyboard backlight was off...
closed laptop lid...
waited for it to sleep...
opened up lid again...
no matter what i do.. the backlight of the keyboard will not go back on...
can turn the room light on and off all i want doesnt change the state of the keybord nor does playing with F8 F9 or F10...

Second trial upcoming...
Now i'm going to make sure the backlight is on before i close the lid.. who knows i might get the backlight on constantly...
time to restart and get backlight back to normal...

[Update #2]

I Can now safely confirm... After a Sleep (no matter what state the backlight was in before the sleep) the backlight goes blackout and needs a full system restart to function normally again...

Does anyone have any suggestions here???
 
Josias said:
Go to the Apple Store!:D

BTW, is backlit keyboard a very cool feature, or could you be without it?
Click to expand...

Not on my 15" sometimes when its dark i'd like to have a keyboard that i can see :) Without having to do a full restart :)
 
Josias said:
Go to the Apple Store!:D

BTW, is backlit keyboard a very cool feature, or could you be without it?
Click to expand...

Apparently I'm having this issue as well, but I didn't even know it. I have my backlight turned off permanently. Never found a need for it.
 
mine backlight is stoll not working

has there been a resolve to this issue other than restarting a bunch of times? i have tried that and still no backlight. when i hit f8, f9, or f10 the window pops up on the monitor with a \in a circle. but no light.
 
10.4.6 kills powerbook keyboard backlight?

TheMac19 and others

Here I still have problems with ALS on my powerbook G4, but in my case I have problems after upgrade to 10.4.9 and a feel days ago. Last week my ALS was working fine, but today I see that when a go to a dark room, my ALS not work.

After a feel minuter of google a found this and try to reboot some times but without positive results.

TheMac19, how many time you reboot your PB ? When you reboot the login windows complete the progress bar or stop without complete ?

Tks.
 
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