[GUIDE][FIX] Nvidia PRISM/smartdimmer - fix screen washout after watching videos

rockvoid · Oct 7, 2012

jtrosky said:
Interesting... While I can select "Set on boot", the SmartDimmer option always reverts to "On" after a reboot. When I asked the author about it, he confirmed that it doesn't work under certain conditions (it's actually a post in this thread).

Again, I'm on a Nexus 7 using the stock ROM with stock kernel (but rooted) running the latest version of Trickster Mod and I just rebooted and the SmartDimmer option reverted back to "On".

Can anyone else running a completely stock Nexus 7 test this? Now I'm wondering!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

i´m on rooted stock rom and stock kernel too...
open trickster mod and clik on the menu-button (3 dots) on the right top side and select "set on boot".
smart dimmer should be set to "off" for better colors (default setting is "on")

jtrosky · Oct 7, 2012

rockvoid said:
i´m on rooted stock rom and stock kernel too...
open trickster mod and clik on the menu-button (3 dots) on the right top side and select "set on boot".
smart dimmer should be set to "off" for better colors (default setting is "on")

Yeah, that's what I've done. But, after rebooting, the "SmartDimmer" option always reverts to "On".

So you are saying that after you reboot, the SmartDimmer option stays set to "Off"?

Do you have any other tweaks installed such as init.d support or anything like that?

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

rockvoid · Oct 7, 2012

jtrosky said:
Yeah, that's what I've done. But, after rebooting, the "SmartDimmer" option always reverts to "On".

So you are saying that after you reboot, the SmartDimmer option stays set to "Off"?

Do you have any other tweaks installed such as init.d support or anything like that?

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

I didn´t install init.d support or other tweaks.....
I previoulsy had installed "script manager" for disabling smartdimmer on boot but i deleted it and use trickster mod now...
Maybe "script manager" didn´t uninstall completely??? (But if i don´t use trickster mod now it sets back to on..)

With trickster mod Smartdimmer stays"off" even if i reboot.

jtrosky · Oct 7, 2012

Well, I dunno then!

Maybe someone else with a stock N7 can tell us if the SmartDimmer sticks or not using Trickster Mod. I have a feeling that you actually do have init.d support (maybe left over from Script Manager?). Trickster does install the init.d scripts to reset this stuff at boot, so as far as I know, that is the only way it could work (if init.d is working).

Regardless, I just found a simple "flash this for init.d support" thread for the N7, so I'm going to do that - I'm sure the settings will stick after enabling init.d support.

Thanks!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

rockvoid · Oct 7, 2012

jtrosky said:
Well, I dunno then!

Maybe someone else with a stock N7 can tell us if the SmartDimmer sticks or not using Trickster Mod. I have a feeling that you actually do have init.d support (maybe left over from Script Manager?). Trickster does install the init.d scripts to reset this stuff at boot, so as far as I know, that is the only way it could work (if init.d is working).

Regardless, I just found a simple "flash this for init.d support" thread for the N7, so I'm going to do that - I'm sure the settings will stick after enabling init.d support.

Thanks!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

i don´t have /system/etc/init.d i only have /init.rc

i use stock android 4.1.1 JRO03S

jtrosky · Oct 7, 2012

Well @rockvoid is 100% correct here! I was having other issues with my N7 (wouldn't shut down properly), so I decided just to wipe everything and start over. So, after rooting, I installed Trickster Mod, set the SmartDimmer to "Off" and set the "Set on boot" option - sure enough, after a reboot, the SmartDimmer setting *did* stick!

What's really strange is that before I wiped my device, I noticed that I had an /system/etc/init.d directory and the only file in it was a Trickster startup script (and I never even enabled init.d support). So I'm *guessing* that at one point, that is how the app started things at boot-time (via init.d), but a later version started things automatically using a different method (but didn't overwrite the existing method if it existed). Just a guess....

Anyway, I apologize for spreading incorrect information that Trickster Mod didn't "save" the settings properly with a stock N7 and I'd like to thank @rockvoid for helping me realize that Trickster Mod does, in fact, save these settings properly now!

Thanks again @rockvoid!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

rockvoid · Oct 7, 2012

jtrosky said:
Well @rockvoid is 100% correct here! I was having other issues with my N7 (wouldn't shut down properly), so I decided just to wipe everything and start over. So, after rooting, I installed Trickster Mod, set the SmartDimmer to "Off" and set the "Set on boot" option - sure enough, after a reboot, the SmartDimmer setting *did* stick!

What's really strange is that before I wiped my device, I noticed that I had an /system/etc/init.d directory and the only file in it was a Trickster startup script (and I never even enabled init.d support). So I'm *guessing* that at one point, that is how the app started things at boot-time (via init.d), but a later version started things automatically using a different method (but didn't overwrite the existing method if it existed). Just a guess....

Anyway, I apologize for spreading incorrect information that Trickster Mod didn't "save" the settings properly with a stock N7 and I'd like to thank @rockvoid for helping me realize that Trickster Mod does, in fact, save these settings properly now!

Thanks again @rockvoid!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

:good: thanks for your explanation too - i already thought scriptmanager left some settings after uninstall :laugh:

KiNG OMaR · Oct 7, 2012

jtrosky said:
For what it's worth, the Asus TF700 tablet had the same issue (only much worse). However, with the Jelly Bean upgrade for the TF700, Asus actually put an On/Off switch right in the settings so that it can easily be enabled/disabled from the Settings app.

My point is that hopefully Asus will do the same for the Nexus 7 in a future firmware update...

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

It's a Nexus device, lol (that means firmware is not Asus' job)

jtrosky · Oct 7, 2012

KiNG OMaR said:
It's a Nexus device, lol (that means firmware is not Asus' job)

Good point!!

Ok, so maybe an option *won't* be added to enable/disable the SmartDimmer in future versions of the firmware!

On a side note, Trickster Mod is no longer saving my SmartDimmer option again! Since the fresh install, all that I've done was update all of the "built-in" apps and installed 2 other apps (which I've since un-installed)... Still testing to see if I can determine what exactly "breaks" it (it's driving me crazy now)!

EDIT: @rockvoid - do you have stock or custom recovery installed? If custom, is it CWM or TWRP? I'm starting to wonder if it's TWRP (or any custom recovery that broke it) - I'm testing that theory now...

EDIT2: Yep, it's TWRP which "breaks" the ability for the settings to stick in Trickster Mod... Strange. Maybe, with the paid version of Trickster, you could use the "Set On Boot Delay" option to work-around this issue somehow - not sure. Oh well, I guess I'll just manually reset it each time for now! At least we determined *what* was breaking it and confirmed that it does work fine as long as you don't use a custom recovery (with TWRP at least - haven't tried it with CWM). Man, what a way to waste a few hours!

Thanks.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

rockvoid · Oct 7, 2012

jtrosky said:
Good point!! Ok, so maybe an option *won't* be added to enable/disable the SmartDimmer in future versions of the firmware!

On a side note, Trickster Mod is no longer saving my SmartDimmer option again! Since the fresh install, all that I've done was update all of the "built-in" apps and installed 2 other apps (which I've since un-installed)... Still testing to see if I can determine what exactly "breaks" it (it's driving me crazy now)!

EDIT: @rockvoid - do you have stock or custom recovery installed? If custom, is it CWM or TWRP? I'm starting to wonder if it's TWRP (or any custom recovery that broke it) - I'm testing that theory now...

EDIT2: Yep, it's TWRP which "breaks" the ability for the settings to stick in Trickster Mod... Strange. Maybe, with the paid version of Trickster, you could use the "Set On Boot Delay" option to work-around this issue somehow - not sure. Oh well, I guess I'll just manually reset it each time for now! At least we determined *what* was breaking it and confirmed that it does work fine as long as you don't use a custom recovery (with TWRP at least - haven't tried it with CWM). Man, what a way to waste a few hours!

Thanks.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

I use CWM ... strange that it doesn't work with TWRP...

jtrosky · Oct 7, 2012

rockvoid said:
I use CWM ... strange that it doesn't work with TWRP...

Well, it was easy enough to test switching to CWM, so I just tried that and sure enough, Trickster Mod now saves the setting again! So, I'll just keep CWM installed, that way I don't have to worry about SmartDimmer anymore!

Thanks for all of the replies - you've been very helpful - I appreciate it! At least we got to the bottom of it!

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

Metallice · Oct 7, 2012

sikagoon7 said:
I used Root Browser to go to "/sys/devices/tegradc.0/smartdimmer/enable" changed the value from "1" to "0" (no actual apostrophes) then changed the permissions to the "enable" file from "rw-r--r--" to "r--r--r--" to prevent anything from writing to the file. It worked in the beginning. Trickster MOD couldn't alter it. Running the command even in su didn't alter it. But rebooting the device reverted it right back to "1". Is there some sort of backup that the native system overwrites the file with? If so can it be deleted or altered itself so that it automatically reverts to "0"? Does the system have higher permissions than su? How does the reversion happen?

Its not a file. Its a sysfs interface for changing kernel parameters. It loads the default values at each reboot as the kernel recreates this "file" at each reboot.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

farmerbb · Oct 7, 2012

sikagoon7 said:
I used Root Browser to go to "/sys/devices/tegradc.0/smartdimmer/enable" changed the value from "1" to "0" (no actual apostrophes) then changed the permissions to the "enable" file from "rw-r--r--" to "r--r--r--" to prevent anything from writing to the file. It worked in the beginning. Trickster MOD couldn't alter it. Running the command even in su didn't alter it. But rebooting the device reverted it right back to "1". Is there some sort of backup that the native system overwrites the file with? If so can it be deleted or altered itself so that it automatically reverts to "0"? Does the system have higher permissions than su? How does the reversion happen?

The /sys/ filesystem is a dynamically created filesystem and it's not physically located on the flash memory, which is why everything reverts itself after a reboot.

If you have a ROM that supports init.d then you should be able to add something like this to an init.d script:

Code:

# Disable NVIDIA Prism
echo 0 > /sys/devices/tegradc.0/smartdimmer/enable

That should automatically disable it on boot.

Metallice · Oct 7, 2012

farmerbb said:
If you have a ROM that supports init.d then you should be able to add something like this to an init.d script:

Code:

# Disable NVIDIA Prism echo 0 > /sys/devices/tegradc.0/smartdimmer/enable

That should automatically disable it on boot.

I think you have to add a delay using "sleep 30" or something like that before or else it wont work.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

jtrosky · Oct 8, 2012

sikagoon7 said:
Is there any way to actually make the default value 0? No init.d or other modding.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

Yeah, with the Trickster Mod app - that's actually what started all of this talk!

Only issue is that the Trickster Mod app doesn't seem to save the settings if you use TWRP, but it works perfectly if you are using CWM.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

Metallice · Oct 8, 2012

sikagoon7 said:
You misunderstood. Trickster does exactly what the name implies. It repeatedly changes the value from 1 to 0 every time the system reverts it from 0 to 1. I don't want to fix a symptom. I want to fix the core issue.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

Yes. Making the relevant change in the kernel source and then compiling it.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

Wilks3y · Oct 8, 2012

This is an interesting theory and fix.
I've never noticed any of these changes, apart from Lock/Unlock you can notice the brightness change.

although I don't think this is the same as what you are describing.
But I didn't even know this happened

Tegra3 your so SLY!

simacca · Oct 14, 2012

I don't get the washed out screen problem either, thankfully.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Nospin · Oct 15, 2012

IAmNice said:
I just bought a n7 and I have a few questions about the "washed screen after watching video". First off is this hardware or software related? I red that this is a problem of the t3 chip. Also I dont notice anything after watching video's. Is this a problem that happens on lots of n7's? Or I might have it too without knowing. How can I check?

Sent from my E15i using xda app-developers app

Start the youtube app. Notice the colors and text, remember how it looks. Now start a video, watch it for a minute or two, now back out of the video to where you just were. Notice any differences.?

poondog · Oct 15, 2012

sikagoon7 said:
So no way to make this defualt?

If you make it an init.d script it will run at boot.

[GUIDE][FIX] Nvidia PRISM/smartdimmer - fix screen washout after watching videos

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Inactive Recognized Contributor

Similar threads

Top Liked Posts