Laptop screen turning off during boot

[TheAlmightyOS]

This has been confusing the hell out of me for quite some time now and the guys at the PCLOS forums are not being very helpful.

Here are the specifics:
Laptop: Gateway Model MX3228 (Click HERE for Specs)
Attempted to install PCLinuxOS LXDE Mini (fresh download and burn, MD5 checks out)

The story so far...
Originally, I had PCLinuxOS Enlightenment installed. However, that particular distro is nearly 3 years old and when I attempted to upgrade it I broke everything. On the PCLOS forums they suggested installing LXDE mini and then installing the packages for Enlightenment. So I downloaded LXDE Mini and attempted to install. That's when all hell broke loose

During boot the laptop's screen goes dark. I say "goes dark" because at just the right angle with just the right amount of light you can make out what is being displayed. It is as if the back-light has been turned off but the monitor is still displaying data.

I tried every single boot option given to me in the bootloader. Not a single one stopped the screen from going dark. I tried pressing FN+F4 thinking it might be shunting the display to the external VGA port, but there was no effect. I plugged in a monitor to the external VGA port. The external monitor remained off if plugged in during or after boot. However, when plugged in before boot it turned on and remained on.

Using the external monitor I managed to install PCLOS to the harddisk. After restarting, I looked around in the settings. Particularly the video card settings. While fiddleing with those settings I changed the Monitor to plug'n'pray. A flash and suddenly the laptop monitor lights up. I save my settings thinking I have fixed the problem and restart. On restart the screen goes dark.

So, in short, selecting "Plug'n'Play" for the monitor in the video configuration dialog will turn the monitor on. On boot, the monitor turns off EVERY TIME. No setting that I can find will stop this

Someone, please HALP!

[devils casper]

Have you tried switching tty during boot up? Press Alt+Ctrl+F2 to F6. Check if any useful output being displayed in any tty.

[TheAlmightyOS]

Have you tried switching tty during boot up? Press Alt+Ctrl+F2 to F6. Check if any useful output being displayed in any tty.

MP-BIOS bug 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC

That's all I got

[MikeTbob]

MP-BIOS bug 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC

That's all I got

Perhaps there isn't enough video memory available? More RAM might be helpful also.

[TheAlmightyOS]

Perhaps there isn't enough video memory available? More RAM might be helpful also.

Thank you for your reply. I set it to maximum (64) in the BIOS. It has 512mb of ram. I ran this exact distro on a laptop sporting a Pentium Coppermine with only 256 ram. It was slow, but it ran and did not have this issue. There is also the question of why the monitor is on and displaying yet the back-light is turned completely off and why it turns back on when "plugnplay" is selected for the monitor at the video card configuration dialog.

I think it is the distro calling for power settings the laptop does not have, but I could be mistaken on that. This is a pickle I tell ya what.
I have the laptop loaded up now, if you have any commands you want me to feed it that could give you any more info please dont hesitate to tell me. I will try anything at this point

EDIT: NEW INFO: So I logged into the laptop via the external monitor and let it set for about 15-20 minutes. Enough for the screensaver to kick on. I pressed a button and POOF the backlight came on like nothing happened. Now I am positive this has something to do with power settings. Note there are no power settings in the BIOS that I can find.

[MikeTbob]

Thank you for your reply. I set it to maximum (64) in the BIOS. It has 512mb of ram. I ran this exact distro on a laptop sporting a Pentium Coppermine with only 256 ram. It was slow, but it ran and did not have this issue. There is also the question of why the monitor is on and displaying yet the back-light is turned completely off and why it turns back on when "plugnplay" is selected for the monitor at the video card configuration dialog.

I think it is the distro calling for power settings the laptop does not have, but I could be mistaken on that. This is a pickle I tell ya what.
I have the laptop loaded up now, if you have any commands you want me to feed it that could give you any more info please dont hesitate to tell me. I will try anything at this point

EDIT: NEW INFO: So I logged into the laptop via the external monitor and let it set for about 15-20 minutes. Enough for the screensaver to kick on. I pressed a button and POOF the backlight came on like nothing happened. Now I am positive this has something to do with power settings. Note there are no power settings in the BIOS that I can find.

Good call. Any keyboard hotkeys for video brightness or anything?

[TheAlmightyOS]

Good call. Any keyboard hotkeys for video brightness or anything?

There is. FN+F7 and F8. But they do nothing until the screen is "woken up". And once woken up I simply can not get the screen to dim that low. I think the back-light is being turned completely off by a command that is issued at boot or a power scheme that is activated at boot.

[MikeTbob]

Have you tried passing nomodeset to the kernel at boot?

[TheAlmightyOS]

no I have not. do I just type nomodeset in the kernel options at the bootloader?
EDIT: because, if that is so, it does not work. boots like normal, backlight still turns off

[MikeTbob]

Yes, adding it to the kernel line should do it. Also try:

nomodeset acpi_backlight=vendor

See this link
HELP please with HP 6735s
and this one
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