Is there any way to disable the side power button’s light? It’s so distracting, especially when I have my laptop on a desk in my bedroom when I’m trying to sleep. There has to be a better solution than tape right? Do I need to fully power it off every night?
Black nail polish might be more lasting than tape. Or super glue and a very small piece of aluminum foil.
But I just drape some fabric over my laptop if the light is bothering me.
I have the same problem! I’ve just been powering it off every night. In the advanced settings in the BIOS you can make the light “ultra dim” but it does still blink. I found this on accident and haven’t looked into how to disable it fully but I feel like it might be possible.
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@Emily_Bernstein’s suggestion of black nail polish is a good one however to undo or reduce the level of dimming might require applying a plastic-unfriendly chemical like acetone.
Personally I’d use the tip of a fine black Sharpie (not a paint pen). It may require several apply-then-leave-to-dry cycles to get the amount of dimming as you want. It will be readily undone with a cotton swab (Q-tip) and something less plastic-hostile like methylated spirits.
The LED should be controlled by the embedded controller which has a command to turn it off.
The details of sending commands to the embedded controller depend on your operating system.
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Here are some commands you can use:
Turn light / LED off:
ectool led power off
Turn it back on / back to normal.
ectool led power auto
ectool can be run from Linux or Windows.
There is a version you can compile on my github here:
With a release version, pre-compiled for windows.
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I did that and it’s better, thanks!
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If you are on Linux you can do the same without any external tools through /sys/class/leds/
Hibernation. WAY before using nail polish to paint your power button. When the device is hibernating it is off. This is actually a good thing. You allow certain components to rest, etc.
This command worked for me to turn it off fully!
echo 0 | sudo tee /sys/class/leds/chromeos:white:power/brightness
Since I didn’t see anyone mention it, there is an option in the BIOS to change the brightness, though I can’t remember at the moment whether you can turn it off completely. The lowest level is quite dim though, I remember I couldn’t even really see it in a naturally lit room during the day.