Asus U50F Backlit Keyboard?

So, about a year ago I bought a U50F at Best Buy, because I needed a laptop for college and it was the best deal for the power. Asus just seemed like the best choice out of all of the laptops there.

I played around, enjoyed the feel, and all was good. Now that I've had it passed my warranty dates, I've started to look around at what I could do with the laptop. (I've since built a much more powerful Desktop... not to say that I don't use my laptop or care what happens, but I just feel like poking around now is all.)

So, I came across the UL30 backlit keyboard mod thread here and thought "That looks simple enough, let's do it!"

I ordered a backlit keyboard to fit my laptop, and was all ready to go. Took the old keyboard off, plugged in the ribbon cable of the new keyboard, and was about to start soldering but then-

What's this? There's an unused ribbon cable port here. It's four pins, and is the exact fit of the backlight cable.

(Will post a picture tomorrow.)

Now, I did a little research, and I know that the U50VG model actually does have a backlit keyboard. Could this port be what the U50VG uses for it's backlight? Has anyone ever taken apart a U50VG and taken pictures?

Anyways, out of curiosity, I plugged the ribbon cable into this port, and turned on the computer. Nothing... Tried FN+F4, and it opened a web browser. That made me think it was just the hotkey that needed to be changed. I downloaded the U50VG ATK drivers and utilities, uninstalled my current stuff, and then installed the new ones.

Still a no go (though now that I think about it, I might not have actually uninstalled the old drivers themselves, just the utilities... hmmm...)

Has anyone tried to add a backlight to this laptop before? I'm kind of interested to see if I can get full functionality out of the backlighting, rather than just hard wiring the ribbon cable to a 5V spot. Not that I'll cry if I can't.

Thoughts anyone?

 

I used to own a U50F (refurb tigerdirect : D), and I did attempt backlit before on it. I did the same exact things you did. My backlit was always on since I hard wired it. But after I sold it, apparently, if you ground one of the pins on the backlit port, it'll come on. But I do know that we cannot control it since the F3 and F4 commands are changed permanently into the non backlit buttons on the motherboard. I think Asus changed up the U50VG motherboard by swapping the socket to the Core I series, that's bout it. and they left the backlit port on.

Here's mine after I got it going. might as well add one in : )

 

Sucks that I won't be able to use the F3+F4 buttons, but if what you say about the grounding is true, I'd settle just for a clean input of the ribbon cable.

You wouldn't happen to know which pin on the backlit port isn't grounded that has to be, would you?

Or what connection you soldered the ground and +5v to.

 

I don't know which one, but wouldn't hurt to try as if it experiences something abnormal, it'll shut down immediately. So try grounding each pin that comes out of the backlit socket. I hooked my backlit ribbon to the left usb port if I remembered. But be warned on a 6 cell laptop, it does eat the battery time up a bit since it takes a 5V energy. I had a Core I5 540M processor and the backlit, the battery run time only lasted around 1 hours and 34 min on battery saver. I had a 7200rpm HDD in it as well : D

 

here's two pictures of the inside that I promised. Maybe it'll jog your memory... Or maybe I'll just edit these pictures later to show where a good 5v and ground source are for other people with this laptop that want to do the mod.

http://abankmusic.com/images/posts/u50fbacklight1.JPG
http://abankmusic.com/images/posts/u50fbacklight2.JPG

 

The one that has to be grounded I believe is the left one looking at it from the second picture. Cuz the two pins on the ribbon cable is + and the other is -. and when I did my 41SV, + was on the right and - on the left. so get a little metal wire and tie one end to a chassis screw and see when that far left one is touched with the grounded wire.