nvidia GM2014 [GTX 980m] - backlight won't turn back on

[SoreGums]

Looking for a solution to get this desktop experience usable.

Right now I can't use Linux, any distro, they all have issues with the backlight on this panel / interacting with the video card.
I got brightness buttons to work here in gentoo by adding extra drivers.
However whenever

• Logout
  
• Change Screen Resolution
  
• The screensaver kicks in
  
• Put laptop to sleep

The panel backlight turns off, yet the screen still draws pixels - i can see this web browser with it's bright white background.
then i can navigate to a terminal session and issue systemctl reboot and reboot into a working backlight is on state.

I really want to go full linux on the desktop as I'm going to be working on some web dev projects and having native docker instead of via Hyper-V is going to be a big plus.
Hopefully someone can assist.
Thanks

Installed via this guide: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sakaki's_EFI_Install_Guide/Using_Your_New_Gentoo_System - great guide!!
Linux version 4.14.65-gentoo
Wayland / Gnome 3
Laptop: only using Discrete GPU via BIOS setting

Log files and other outputs: https://gist.github.com/SoreGums/6ade945932099f2aeaec2eb1e4d06a94
messages, dmesg, emerge --info, hwinfo