Helios 500 Keyboard backlight colour problem G9-793

HAL_9007

Hello guys. 
I have Helios 500 for 6 months now, but lately i observed strange colour change on keyboard backlight. Im pretty positive, that at the beginning, makro keys, touchpad and keyboard back light were all the same colour but now keyboard itself is more green compared to makro keys and touchpad. It's like a cannot set default blue on keyboard, its either darker or lighter but something wrong is happening with this colour. Does this mean keyboard is damaged or something? Anyone has similar problem?

HAL_9007

Anyone? Im I the only one who gets this?

xapim

This is the first time i see this issue i suggest you to contact acer support for a possible repair/replacement

HAL_9007

Thanks for responce. It's not like the blue is dead. I reinstalled Predator Sence but didn't help.

Coqui13

agree with xapim i dont think theirs any troubleshooting we can give you that will help, it has to be done by Acer service center https://www.acer.com/ac/pl/PL/content/service-contact   

Username3

I have the same problem. Did you resolve this problem since February?

HAL_9007

Unfortunatelly no. I hesitate to send it to service yet because its a minor problem and I still wait how this situation develop. I'm not 100% sure if this problem happened gradually or lets say after bios update. Its not like blue is completely dead. It's there, but you can't set exact shade you want, so maybe this is software problem or maybe RGB band is loose? What do you think? How is it in your case? Send some photos if you can.

HAL_9007

This is default, out of the box setting.
R:0
G:155
B: 240


-----------------------

It should be dark blue, but instead, its still almost the same as the first one.
R:0
G:2
B: 255


-----------------------------

Now, if i change green only from 2 to 1, color goes dark blue.
R: 0
G: 1
B: 255

Username3

I tried that dark blue. Worked for me... hm.. what about the dark purple? I think it's a software bug, or maybe led cable problem.

Username3

The srangest thing (as you said) that the backlight is not completely dead. If i try to set a dark purple, i get white backlight, but If I set the backlight to red, or orange, it's working.

HAL_9007

After setting RGB 29 , 4 , 28  (should be almost black purple) I get almost faded, almost white, pink color.


And again, if I set it to RGB 8 , 1 , 8 (it still shows black color on preview) I get dark pink. 


So it seems like all 3 primary colors ARE there, but for some reason they cannot be mixed properly either due to software problem or damaged controller or something. Overall, whole range of available colors is much more limited. Do you recall, if that problem occured after automatic bios update around december?

Username3

I manually updated the BIOS (2018.11.08 version 1.16), nothing changed. The pink you set is the default pink. if I tried to install a previous version of PredatorSense nothing changed. So I think it's a damaged controller or something other hardware problem. If the software would cause this, others would have this problem too.

NiteNinja

I have the same issue with my Helios 500, AMD version. Out of the box I couldn't get them to perfectly match but it was good enough, but it seems over a small span of time (1 month), the colors seem really off. I know the keyboard is naturally duller (be nice if they put a tad more voltage to the LEDs), but today I really notice the difference.

I did the blue and green test, and mine does the same thing. At G=2, its really off teal, and G=1, it snaps back to dark blue.

Also white isn't white, but more yellow. Figured if I couldn't match the keyboard to the trackpad, I'll go to white... nope, just off yellow.

I wonder if the LEDs themselves break down from the heat generated by the hardware underneath? The keyboard doesn't get hot under use though, this laptop has the best cooling performance of any laptop I've ever used.

Username3

I took my Helios 500 to Acer service center. They repalced my keyboard two weeks ago. I tried the colour mixing, and it had been better... but still not good. So my question is, it is really possible to mix any colour what you'd like to with this?! I really don't know what do i have to do....

Razamax

I can also confirm this issue on my Helios 500 PH517-51-72NU. My keyboard LEDs have turned greenish in hue to such a degree that there is noticeable difference between the blue power button/macro keys/track-pad color and the keyboard color. It happened gradually over time during the six months I have had this laptop.

There is obviously a quality control issue here. The keyboard LEDs are of cheaper quality and cannot maintain their hue after so many hrs of continuous use. The LEDs in the power button and macro keys are obviously of higher quality. I usually do not have my track-pad LED turned on, so cannot say about the quality of the track-pad LEDs.

xapim

As i stated above contact acer support directly for a possible repair/replacement while still on warranty

Username3

Razamax: My track-pad backlight has always been turned on, i have no problem with that. The macro key's colour is good too. But i don't understand. Why don't other people have this problem? Or they just don't see the difference in the colour. Anyway i

Razamax

xapim said:

As i stated above contact acer support directly for a possible repair/replacement while still on warranty

Well, I am not bothered by it that much to take it to repair, I can still see the keys in dark and that is all I want. I only mentioned it to let everyone know that the problem is real and exists. I will only take it to repair if ever the LEDs stop working altogether.

Username3 said:

But i don't understand. Why don't other people have this problem? Or they just don't see the difference in the colour. Anyway i

Good question. Maybe they just don't care, or aren't too much concerned by the change in the color of the keyboard light 

Username3

I did a lot of searching and thinking a lot yesterday. I think it is NOT hardware problem. It is a software bug/problem. When I took my laptop to the service center, they replaced my keyboard. I'm in a hungarian gaming notebook forum, and there's a few people (who has Helios 500) with this problem, but they don't care as you said. If a hardware problem cause this, the backlight colour mix would be completely dead. I think it's a software (PredatorSense) bug. The main colours are working. The software can't understand completely the RGB colour codes at colour mixing. For example: dark blue, as HAL_9007 is wrote it, is working with 0,1,255 RGB codes. If it is really a software bug, i hope Acer will solve this problem once. And I agree with you, the problem is real, and exists (it is possible that on all the helios 500 notebooks)

Razamax

@Username3, I do not have predator sense installed on my system. I only had it for two weeks and then I did a clean reinstall of Windows and never reinstalled predator sense back. So it is probably not predator sense that is causing this issue. I am thinking it has something to do with bad LED's

Username3

If that's true, then the service center should have checked the LED problem, when I took to them...