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How to disable the 'breathing' light on my PB?
- Thread starter Bruce Lee, PhD
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titaniumducky
macrumors 6502a
I had that phone a wee while ago, and what's worse than the signal (yellow) light is the Bluetooth light. I kept it on the table beside my bed, and even with my eyes closed, it was like a big ol' strobe light. That got annoying really quickly.
The solution? Get a Z600 - it has no BT light 🙂
True - in reality, it's a comparitively infitismal amount of heat that exits through the keyboard, probably due to the thermal insulation properties of the materials beneath it. There was a post on macrumors a while back about this, and someone quoted a percentage figure. It was tiny, whatever the actual value was.
andy.
I always thought that it would be cool to be able to have user control over all of the lights on the PB case (I.E. the apple, the power cord, the breathing/snoring pulsating thing). There have been times where I wanted to have my case closed but my apple still lit up for the sheer "coolness" factor of it. How sweet would it be to walk into a near pitch black room where the only thing you can see is a glowing white apple? Maybe that would hurt the screen or something (because the backlight would have to be on for it), but it would be awesome.
P.S. Commas inside or outside of parentheses? I can never remember.
P.S. Commas inside or outside of parentheses? I can never remember.
MacCoaster
macrumors 6502a
Software thing
This is indeed a software problem. The Linux kernel has a feature where you could use the PowerBook's sleep LED to indicate harddrive activity. If this is controllable through the kernel, I'm pretty sure Apple could add a preference panel for this.
This is indeed a software problem. The Linux kernel has a feature where you could use the PowerBook's sleep LED to indicate harddrive activity. If this is controllable through the kernel, I'm pretty sure Apple could add a preference panel for this.
Counterfit
macrumors G3
Counterfit said:
for me the problem is when i'm working at my desk and i've got the machine with me. i don't use it much when i'm working, but occasionally i need to google something, draw a graph, whatever. so i open it up, do what i need, and then put it back to sleep. it's nice and convenient to do this by opening/shutting the case (i don't need to press any buttons), and if i sleep it when i'm not using it, i can work an entire day without needing to plug it in. except for the light, the whole thing is super-convenient.
MacCoaster said:
interesting... i would certainly feel manly if i tweaked some code and recompiled my kernel to solve this problem. 🙂 is that even possible when running mac os? i don't know enough about all the mach/darwin/mac os world.
MacCoaster
macrumors 6502a
Maybe if you took a look into the XNU (Mach) or Darwin's source code, it'd be there. I bet it's a kernel extension. Maybe even make one. I'd take a look at the Linux code first.Bruce Lee said:
yellow said:
I just chuck a sock or whatever randon piece of clothing I have laying around over it.
Works like a dream and at no extra cost.
I remember one of the MacOS X updates apparently changing the "brightness" of the LED on the iBooks, so obviously this is something that can be changed through software. I just don't know how. 🙂
Maybe it's a firmware thing?
Maybe it's a firmware thing?
rainman::|:|
macrumors 603
i'm surprised that so many people have issues with the lights. At my desk, between printers and drives and cell phones and power adapters, there are probably 15 different LEDs that blink or light up... looks like a damn christmas tree. I've rarely if ever noticed my iMac's pulsing light among these other ones... Of course, it helps that I have a home office separate from my bedroom.
As to the light being annoying at work... weird. PHd, man, you should scoff at such inconsequential things! hehe...
That said, i suppose it would be nice if someone came up with a 3rd party hack to change the lights... I just don't see Apple doing it, because they don't like to burden down preference panes with too many extra features. Plus they most likely want uniformity of the products that are being carried around the real world... The "breathing" light is starting to become symbolic of Apple, but it would seem more haphazardly if people could choose whether or not to see it.
Of course, if people are putting tape over the lights, it looks much more haphazard...
paul
As to the light being annoying at work... weird. PHd, man, you should scoff at such inconsequential things! hehe...
That said, i suppose it would be nice if someone came up with a 3rd party hack to change the lights... I just don't see Apple doing it, because they don't like to burden down preference panes with too many extra features. Plus they most likely want uniformity of the products that are being carried around the real world... The "breathing" light is starting to become symbolic of Apple, but it would seem more haphazardly if people could choose whether or not to see it.
Of course, if people are putting tape over the lights, it looks much more haphazard...
paul
MacCoaster
macrumors 6502a
No, it's purely software as I demonstrated a point to prove this earlier in this thread with the Linux kernel.Garry said:
yellow said:
quick update: i played with this a little just now but had no luck. kextstat shows that it isn't normally loaded, at least on my system. i loaded it, slept, but it made no difference -- the powerbook continued to breath. in the Info.plist, there's a key named "Intensity" which seemed promising, but if I set the value to anything other than 5, the default, kextload would start to load it, then just stop without reporting any error, then kextstat would show it clearly wasn't loaded. anyway, thanks for the find. if anyone has better luck, please report back, though i admit that messing with unknown kernel extensions is probably a Bad Idea (i.e. don't yell if your machine stops booting). 🙂
i'll try to find the linux source code, though since i have zero familiarity with the linux source tree it may take some time.
