Dell G5 5587 keyboard backlight

My wife and I purchased identical laptop computers, the Dell Inspiron 5559 with backilt keyboards. Out of the box, hers has no issues staying lit. She uses the Fn/F10 combination to set her back light either "Dim, Bright, or off. Working fine!

Out of the box, my back light was only staying on for five seconds, I contacted Dell support and they directed me to install the DFEP which I did. This allowed me to set the timeout for the back light to five minutes. This is better, but still not the "always on" option that I was looking for. So I uninstalled the enhancement pack and the keyboard still stays lit for five minutes.

The only difference between my wife's laptop that stays illuminated constantly unless turned off with the FN/F10 switch and my laptop that will not stay lit is found in "Device manager" under "Keyboards". Mine shows two entries , "HID keyboard device and standard PS/2 Keyboard" where her's just shows the "standard PS/2 Keyboard". I don't know whether that makes a difference or not. I have tried uninstalling the HID Keyboard device from my system but it is reinstalled by Windows in the next reboot. 

There are no setting in the BIOS other then "OFF, DIM or BRIGHT"

Does anyone know what else I can try to get the back light to stay on? An easy "On and off" switch would be fine!

Can you give directions how to do that please? I also would like to set the timer to permanently "on".

*edit* Nevermind. I didn't see the other pages of forum. Please disregard my post.

I was able to solve this by changing the settings in BIOS. There are 3 different sections available -

Backlit KB Brightness - You can set it to Bright

Backlight timeout on A/C - You can set it to quite a few options ranging from 5 seconds (default) to Never

Backlight timeout on battery - similar as above

I set both to 1 minute and it works just fine.

Hope this helps.

This is the only thing I have found to work.  I type in Windows Mobility Center in my search bar.  Go to the bottom left and click on the Keyboard icon and the window comes up to give you the option to keep it on for up to 15 minutes or "Never Off".  I chose 15 minutes.  Hope this helps!

This worked perfectly. Thanks!

Just started using my brand new Dell G5 only to find, like many others, issues with the keyboard backlight. In my case it is simply just not working at all.

I've tried all the updates, bios settings, additional Dell utilities, Mobility Centre... EVERYTHING! but nothing works which means this could only be a hardware issue straight OOTB. 

What worries me is that several friends and colleagues of mine using a varied range of Dell laptops are reporting issues with backlight on their keyboards. 

Can Dell just not make proper backlit keyboards?

That would be nice; however, I only get these options:

Any idea for how I, and others, can get more options like on your laptop?

I have G5 15 laptop. My Backlight of keyboard doesn't light up after pressing any key or mouse movement like it was used to do. I can start by pressing FN+F10, but that stays on permanently. How can I fix that?

I did what the dude said to go to bias find your keyboard light setting and turn it off so it stays on. good advice 100% doable.

Reset or power off your pc—boot into Bios. Turn on your pc. Press F2 or F12 depending on the model. It would help if you booted into Bios before widows. Get into Bios, search for Keyboard Light. Adjust the settings to NEVER or completely off, so the Keyboard lights stay on indefinitely. Update in bios. Restart pc and glow light keyboard on forever.  

I had the same issue on my G15 5515.

After reading this thread (even thou it's old) I was able to find the settings in the BIOS (Pressing F2). In there I could find options for AC and Battery and about 8 different timing-out periods.

My 10 year old Lenovo has a combination of keys that go: "OFF, DIM, BRIGHT". My Dell does have in the F5 a key that allows to switch from Dim to Bright but not to avoid the keyboard to time out.

It's simply a sad overlook.

---

@NateTheGreat7 wrote:

I have the G7 series and I was just able to change the keyboard illumination settings in the system BIOS.  When you restart your computer, hit F2 when you see the Dell logo and it will go into the BIOS setup.  Navigate through the options on the left side until you see Keyboard Illumination.  I had the option to change it to stay on forever.  They have options for both AC and battery.  Hope this helps!

---

This worked for me!

I like having the keyboard always lit up