ASUS TUF FX705DT keyboard backlight not working

Hi I have recently installed and using Manjaro with DE XFCE.4.16 on my ASUS TUF Gaming FX705DT laptop. I do not have windows installed on this laptop, and only using Manjaro as my primary OS. After installing Manjaro I noticed my back-lit keyboard’s RGB backlight is not working. Need help on this issue.
I am fairly new to linux so any help and guidance will be much appreciated.

Below are few details about my system:

bios version I am using is 316, which is the latest one as per asus support page.

hwinfo --short
cpu:                                                            
                       AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx, 1875 MHz
keyboard:
  /dev/input/event4    AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
mouse:
  /dev/input/mice      [Maxxter] Optical Gaming Mouse [Xtrem]
monitor:
                       NV173FHM-N49 LCD Monitor
graphics card:
                       nVidia TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile / Max-Q]
                       ATI Picasso
usb controller:
                       AMD Raven USB 3.1
                       AMD Raven USB 3.1
bios:
                       BIOS
bridge:
                       AMD Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 3
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 PCIe GPP Bridge [6:0]
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 1
                       AMD Family 17h (Models 00h-1fh) PCIe Dummy Host Bridge
                       AMD FCH LPC Bridge
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 PCIe GPP Bridge [6:0]
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 6
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Root Complex
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Internal PCIe GPP Bridge 0 to Bus A
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 4
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 PCIe GPP Bridge [6:0]
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 2
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 PCIe GPP Bridge [6:0]
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 0
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 7
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 Device 24: Function 5
hub:
                       Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
                       Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
                       Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
                       Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
memory:
                       Main Memory
bluetooth:
                       IMC Networks Bluetooth Radio
unknown:
                       FPU
                       DMA controller
                       PIC
                       Keyboard controller
                       AMD Raven/Raven2 IOMMU
                       AMD Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) Platform Security Processor
                       AMD FCH SMBus Controller

sudo dmesg | grep asus
[    9.668939] asus_wmi: ASUS WMI generic driver loaded
[    9.674948] asus_wmi: Initialization: 0x1
[    9.675112] asus_wmi: BIOS WMI version: 8.1
[    9.675280] asus_wmi: SFUN value: 0x4a0061
[    9.675290] asus-nb-wmi asus-nb-wmi: Detected ATK, not ASUSWMI, use DSTS
[    9.675294] asus-nb-wmi asus-nb-wmi: Detected ATK, enable event queue
[    9.848999] input: Asus WMI hotkeys as /devices/platform/asus-nb-wmi/input/input14

sudo systemctl --failed
  UNIT                                            LOAD   ACTIVE SUB    DESCRIPTION                                                   
● systemd-backlight@backlight:acpi_video0.service loaded failed failed Load/Save Screen Backlight Brightness of backlight:acpi_video0

LOAD   = Reflects whether the unit definition was properly loaded.
ACTIVE = The high-level unit activation state, i.e. generalization of SUB.
SUB    = The low-level unit activation state, values depend on unit type.
1 loaded units listed.

Thanks in advance!

Hello,

Try this shortcut keys:

For extend lights of keyboard: Fn+arrow high

For reduce the lights: Fn+arrow down

PS: Are you activate the ATK package ? Sometimes, this package to sleep mode.

i have a similar laptop,
i couldn’t manage to turn the keyboard light on,
but here is a discussion that might hekp you

and there are other threads on this forum about it.

i also saw that Kernel 5.11 and up might have better support for it out of the box.

also apparently there is an Aur package which i would personnaly not install and seem to work for some:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/tuf-controller/

not sure what the next one is about,but it seems more up to date:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/tuf-manager/

but there are no comments on those AUR packages.

@Guytoo
how do i check what is the status of this package and if it is in sleep mode?

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It seems that cleanup software placed this package on sleep. For reactivate this package you have to see the list of programs standby for check the ATK package and reboot the laptop. At restart, you obtein (normally) the lights of keyboard.

Thanks @Guytoo and @linub for your responses. Sorry for late reply as I did not log in to forum for couple of days. Yesterday I logged in and read @linub 's suggestion, although both tuf-manager and tuf-controller did not work for me, but I went ahead with the faustus DKMS module and made it work. So now I am able to activate my keyboard back-light as well as have some cpu fan control that comes packaged with the faustus module.
hackbnw/faustus
The guide provides enough information for a noob like me to make it work. So if anyone wants to try it go check it out! :slight_smile:

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