Adaptive Brightness - Turn On or Off in Windows 8

How to Turn On or Off Adaptive Brightness in Windows 8 and 8.1​

   Information

This will show you how to turn adaptive brightness on or off to have Windows 8 use a light sensor (usually built into the display) to automatically adjust the screen brightness to match the lighting conditions in your PC's surroundings.

To determine if your laptop or computer monitor supports adaptive brightness, look for the Enable adaptive brightness setting in Power Options in the steps below. If the Enable adaptive brightness setting is not available, then it doesn't support adaptive brightness.

This will affect all users on the computer that use the same power plan that you have this set for.

OPTION ONE

To Turn Adaptive Brightness On or Off in Power Options

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1. Open the Advanced Power Settings for your power plan.​

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2. Expand Display and Enable display brightness, then set adaptive brightness to be turned on or off for when your computer is On battery and Plugged in. (see screenshot below)​

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3. When finished, click/tap on OK, and close the Power Options window. (see screenshot above)​

OPTION TWO

To Turn Adaptive Brightness On or Off in PC Settings in Windows 8.1

   Note

This option will turn on or off both the On battery and Plugged in settings for your power plan in OPTION ONE above.

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1. Open PC settings, and click/tap on PC and devices on the left side. (see screenshot below)​

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2. Click/tap on Power and sleep on the left side, and turn on or off Adjust my screen brightness automatically on the right side under Brightness. (see screenshot below)​

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OPTION THREE

To Enable or Disable Adaptive Brightness in Services

NOTE: This option should really on be used if OPTION ONE or OPTION TWO above did not work for you.

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1. Press the Windows + R keys to open the Run dialog, type services.msc, and press Enter.​

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2. Do step 3 or 4 below for what you would like to do.​

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3. To Enable Adaptive Brightness​

NOTE: This is the default setting.​

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A) Enable the Sensor Monitoring Service, and set it as Manual (Trigger Start).​

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4. To Disable Adaptive Brightness​

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A) Stop (if running) and disable the Sensor Monitoring Service.​

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5. You can now close Services if you like.​

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OPTION FOUR

Enable or Disable Adaptive Brightness in Intel Graphics Control Panel

NOTE: This option is only if you are using Intel HD graphics on your PC. You may need to do it in addition to the options above. If you are using NVIDIA or AMD graphics instead, then this does not apply to you.

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1. Open the Intel Graphics and Media Control Panel.​

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2. Click/tap the Power icon, and do step 3 or 4 below for what you would like to do.​

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3. To Enable Adaptive Brightness​

NOTE: This is the default setting.​

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A) Check or turn on the Display Power Saving Technology box for both On battery and Plugged in, and click/tap on OK or Apply.​

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4. To Disable Adaptive Brightness​

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A) Uncheck or turn off the Display Power Saving Technology box for both On battery and Plugged in, and click/tap on OK or Apply.​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Create a Power and Sleep PC Settings Shortcut in Windows 8.1
• How to Adjust the Display Screen Brightness in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Turn On or Off Automatic Dim Display Brightness in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Add or Remove "Dim display after" in Power Options in Windows
• How to Change Power Plan Settings in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Set to Turn Off the Display after Specified Time in Windows

 

[najemioussama]

thanks

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Najemioussama, and welcome to Eight Forums.

 

[abdallah1993]

Thanks a lot

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Abdallah, and welcome to Eight Forums. Glad it could help.

 

[HEdwar2013]

I've often wondered if most of the newer laptops have ALS! I guess it turns out there is a software based one now so I'm definitely going to be tweaking it.

Thanks for the info Brink!

 

[Brink]

Hello Edwar, and welcome to Eight Forums.

It still requires hardware support for adaptive brightness. This just helps to make it easier to turn it on or off if it does.

 

[kodiak]

Hi.

I must have some problem. I've disabled the adaptative brightness on my powerplans (checked services and it's disabled) and sometimes, when switching between programs or even browser tabs, brightness dims or goes to full brightness.

I've already updated both my graphics drivers and problem persists.

kodiak

Windows 8 Pro
Asus N43SL

 

[Brink]

Hello Kodiak,

You might also check your "Dim display after" settings in Power Options to see if it may be set to dim the display after X amount of minutes while on battery and plugged in. This can cause the display to appear to dim and brighten randomly as well.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[kodiak]

Hello Kodiak,

You might also check your "Dim display after" settings in Power Options to see if it may be set to dim the display after X amount of minutes while on battery and plugged in. This can cause the display to appear to dim and brighten randomly as well.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks Shawn.

Checked that option to Never so lets see if it makes a difference. Will test for some days that will come here to post the result....

kodiak

 

[Brink]

Ok. I hope that sorts it for you.

 

[kodiak]

Nope.

That did not solve the problem...


kodiak

 

[Brink]

Kodiak,

Well, with "Adaptive Brightness" and "Dim Display" turned off, it's shouldn't be dimming automatically anymore.

You might check to see if Asus may have any included software installed that may also be controlling the dim and brightness of the display.

 

[kodiak]

Hi.

I know this would be difficult to understand because my OS is in Portuguese but I'm now testing these settings:



I don't have any asus software installed

Will see how this goes and then will post back the results.

Thanks for your help

kodiak

 

[Brink]

You didn't set "Dim Display" (obscurecer ecra apos) to "Never". Instead you have it set to do so after 100 minutes.

 

[kodiak]

You didn't set "Dim Display" (obscurecer ecra apos) to "Never". Instead you have it set to do so after 100 minutes.

Hi Brink

This is what I'm testing now.

I've done Dim Display to Never already and that did not solve.

kodiak

 

[Brink]

As a test, change all of the brightness settings to 100%, and dim settings to 0% to see if that may help if something else may be dimming the display. This way it will still be at full brightness if it uses these settings to dim by.

 

[kodiak]

As a test, change all of the brightness settings to 100%,....

Sorry but I don't like to work with the brightness so high. It "hurts" my eyes



kodiak

 

[Brink]

You could set it to what you like instead for it to still work. The main thing is to have them all set to how you like so that it wouldn't matter if the dim or brightness changes since it would only change to what you have the % set to.

 

[karatekirk]

Hey all,

I am new to Windows 8 64bit. I am primarily a gamer and I have built my system for this specifically. I have been investigating this issue for about a week now almost every post that I see about this is related to a laptop.

I am running a desktop (always plugged in) computer. Windows 8 seems to be geared more towards the mobile experience and has really put me in a place where I feel like I have made a mistake in transitioning to Windows 8 and Microsoft is unwilling to help without an additional financial investment.

My issue: Adaptive Brightness will not turn off. I have disabled this in all the power profiles and even created a custom power profile with it disabled. This desktop doesnt have any "light sensors" but I went in and disabled the Sensor Monitoring Service as well.

The adaptive brightness "feature" continues to dim and brighten my display based on the "brightness" of the image that I am viewing. For example, when I am playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 2: Zombies, you can imagine that it is a very dark game to begin with. Well, Windows 8 wants to dim the monitor anytime the in game lighting gets low. I move into a dark area, you can see everything dim, text, hud, OSD. As soon as the image onscreen brightens, you can see the whole monitor increase power usage.

This happens in Guild Wars 2, World of Tanks, Neverwinter, COD, browsers/websites (including this one), picture viewers, absolutely everything. The darker images cause the entire monitor to decrease its brightness. I have tried re-enabling this feature and then disabling it again. It just doesnt want to turn off.

I have updated drivers, modified video settings, changed video cards, nothing seems to stop it. I have loaded Windows 7 as an alternate OS for dual boot, this doesnt happen in Windows 7 but I only have a 32bit Windows 7. The only thing I havent tried is wiping the drive and starting over but I am certainly hesitant to do so.

ASUS Sabertooth L77
Intel Core i7 3.4ghz Quad Core
16gb DDR3
2x 128gb OCZ SATA3 SSDs.
ASUS Radeon 5830 Dark Knight

I am hoping for someone to come save me from going insane from Win8 which I really like and which runs like an absolute dream on my computer, except for this one, very annoying thing.

 

[Brink]

Hello Kirk, and welcome to Eight Forums.

This doesn't sound like the "Adaptive Brightness" feature is doing this to me. Especially since you turned it off and disabled it's service.

See if doing a clean startup to troubleshoot may help ID what may be causing this.

How to perform a clean boot to troubleshoot a problem in Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8

Hope this helps for now,
Shawn