Numlock backlight off on startup

Framework Laptop 16
1

Hi All,

Everytime my FW 16 starts up I have to switch on the backlight for the numlock. The keyboard backlight comes on automatically as I had it the last time the laptop was on.

I even bound a simpler key on the numpad (esc as backligt on/of toggle) to make it easy to switch it on quicker but it still needs to be switched on after every boot.

Using Windows.

Am I doing something wrong? Can anybody help me solve this non important but annoying thing?

I tried looking on the forum but I only found topics about how to change the backlight and the key bindings.

2

I unfortunately don’t have a solution for you. I am, however, running into a similar situation, but it’s not every time it boots though. Given how much dimmer the num pad is compared to the RGB keyboard I don’t notice if it’s on a lot of the time but mine is pretty inconsistent. I’ve definitely booted into Windows 11 and tried to enable it just to find out that it was on, and I just turned it off.

3

Thanks for your reply, with my laptop it is everytime weirdly enough.

4

Well I’ve booted my FW16 twice tonight and it was off both times. The first time I booted it up and after getting into Windows it was off. I hit num lock to turn it off (should be on by default) then hit enter and it was still off. I hit num lock then enter again and it was still off. I hit num lock and enter a third time and it finally came on. The second boot was easy as num lock enter and it was on.

So I went into VIA and looked at the number pad. First you’ll notice layer 0 is the standard num pad (mine is modified and has macros for driver updates).

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Layer 1, which is num lock off, is a bit interesting. Rather than enter being backlight toggle its backlight cycle. I wonder if this has anything to do with it not being on by default.

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1 Like
5

So I’m fiddling with it right now and it seems like the key bindings aren’t what they say they are or there’s some other sort of issue.

As a test I left everything the same but added RGB toggle to “0” (just wanted to see if they were capable of RGB) and back light toggle to “.”

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Backlight toggle apparently does nothing. RGB toggle also does nothing. :frowning: Backlight cycle seems to change brightness settings and brightness toggle is cycling.

Just tested Backlight off and on and they work as expected.

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Continuing to test these settings bright - and bright + both do nothing.

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And neither does effect speeds from what I can tell. Turns out those are for RGB effect speeds. So of course they don’t do anything.

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Odd that not everything is working as it should. @RubberDuckNL maybe you can check yours and see if they’re functioning the same as mine. Or if all of yours are working as they should.

6

Hey, maybe I can shed a little light on things. :bulb: :wink:

Unfortunately, Via is… kind of annoying, as you’ve seen. One, it makes available keys for functions that may not be supported on your board. For example, none of the RGB keys will do anything for a board that is not RGB (numpad is white backlight only). Two, Via does not give you any hint on what keys do. You’ll notice there is text that popups when hovering over some buttons, that could give you useful info, but it doesn’t.

BR toggle is not brightness toggle, it’s Breathing Toggle. It should make the backlight fade in and out, aka “breathe”. Why Framework decided to put a novelty like that on the keymap that ships with the keyboards, I really do not know. A number of people have triggered it by accident & posted asking how to fix it / what’s wrong with their keyboard.

Those are actually RGB control keys.

RGB control keys
bright +, bright -
Hue +, Hue -
Sat +, Sat -
Effect speed +, Effect speed -
And of course everything labeled “RGB”

BL Toggle doesn’t work?
I would have expected that to work.

Note the Via is not made by the same Dev team that created QMK. They don’t seem fond of it either. They have been working on a replacement, though progress is a bit slow, as QMK is a hobbyist / free time project, like quite a few open source projects.

Not backlight related, but Via annoyances related / keys that won’t work related. You’ll find other keys for functions not supported / not present on your board elsewhere. In the special section, “audio” keys, “music” keys, clicky keys, mouse keys. Audio, music and clicky are for keyboards that have a speaker as part of the keyboard. Mouse keys are just not enabled in the shipping firmware, an oversight I think. There are also a number of keys within special that only apply if your OS is set to a language which makes use of them & a few that only apply to Mac OS.

2 Likes
7

Thanks for the useful information! I didn’t realize that it was toggling the breathing. That makes sense for why it operates the way it does. I’m all for different effects even for a solid white backlight. Kinda sad that’s the only effect they have.

I’m still not sure why it’s not on after boot though. I’ll see if any of the changes changed that tonight.

8

For anyone interested:

I just changed my wi-fi card, so had to remove the keyboard, numpad and midplate. And for some reason I noticed the backlight on my numpad now starting up on startup as it is supposed to. It even starts up sooner then the main keyboard.

I don’t know what changed but it seems that the issue is fixed for me right now

9

Odd.
Before now, before removing the midplate and everything, had you tried re-seating the numpad? I’m thinking perhaps one of its pins wasn’t making contact. Not sure how it would behave if its sleep pin wasn’t connected.