OpenAI's Astra Decompiles BIOS to Nail EC Backlight Control Other Models Couldn't
anom604 · reddit · 2026-09-07
A Reddit user shares the sequel to Astra's fan-control feat: the OpenAI model now gives full control over an Acer laptop's quirky keyboard backlight — after GPT-5.4, 5.5, Sol and Fable 5 all failed.
- The backlight was unconfigurable (timed on/off/dim/bright only) and reset to max brightness on first keystroke every cold boot
- Sol came closest but spun its wheels for 5 hours before the user gave up
- Astra's magic moment: before writing a single EC register, it decompiled the BIOS and found exactly where and what to write — no guesswork, first attempt nailed it
- The user now has full enable/disable/control over the backlight from Linux
A counter-intuitive demo of frontier models doing low-level reverse engineering.
More from Fun
- AI Video Meme: Hired to Taste-Test the King's Dinner, You Ate All of It — Substantial_Depth744 · 2026-09-07
- AI Short Film Trailer: The 828 AD Heist That Stole a Saint — Adept-Discussion2059 · 2026-09-07
- Nous Research's Teknium hits back at Hermes critic: repo has 17,500 open issues — Teknium · 2026-09-07
- 'Claude Can Write Well, Just Not for You': Portal-Style RL Parody Goes Viral — zetalyrae · 2026-09-07
- GPT-6 Astra reverse-engineers Simpsons Hit & Run into a playable open-source three.js browser port — CtrlAltDwayne · 2026-09-07
- Maker spins a PCB-only motor to 4000rpm using etched copper spirals — k7agar · 2026-09-07