Solved Laptop screen brightness won't adjust

[Brink]

Hello gratefulgator, and welcome to Eight Forums.

If you're happy with it as is, then there's no need to install the driver. Hopefully the next version release, will work better for you.

 

[gratefulgator]

Hello gratefulgator, and welcome to Eight Forums.

If you're happy with it as is, then there's no need to install the driver. Hopefully the next version release, will work better for you.

Thank you!!

 

[spapakons]

THANK YOU! That Guy and Brink, I appreciate your posts very much! :thumb:

For the benefit of others, I came to find out why I couldn't dim and That Guy you were dead on accurate with your statement. I tried the tip from Insidious Krypt, but it didn't work for me. I tried the Intel site, but it wouldn't let me install an older driver. So I went to the Lenovo site, the manufacturer of my laptop, and downloaded the older driver from there. The installation hadn't yet completed when my display started to dim. I have renamed the saved old driver to something I can easily find and recognize it's purpose just in case I forget and allow the driver to be updated again.
Thanks again guys, you saved me what would have been hours and hours of searching for the problem!

If you go at Intel's site, support, drivers download, you see two options. One is to automatically update the drivers. This will always install latest ones (if any) no matter if they do work or not. The other option is to manually search for the driver (if you know which model it is) and download it. In the results you get the latest version, and at least one previous version. I would try first latest version, and if it does not work properly, I would try the previous version. Of course you select Windows 8 or 8.1, not any earlier Windows version, unless the model is old and there isn't a Windows 8 version. Every time you want to install a different version of the driver, make sure you uninstall the current version first and restart your computer. Then start installing the other version, not on top of the previous installation! This ensures the install completes successfully without any issues. You may also need to disable your antivirus so as not to interrupt the installation. Always run the setup as Administrator to give full access to your system and avoid problems related to security settings (e.g. a file failing to copy to a system folder).

I am extremely technologically impaired and having this same issue. I also have a Samsung laptop, got it last Christmas, so it's pretty new, and just upgraded to Windows 8.1 a few days ago. Then my laptop screen got dim and couldn't be adjusted. I was able to successfully go to the Intel site and upgrade my Intel HD Graphics 4000 adapter. That didn't work, so I just uninstalled the driver again and was going to try the prior version. However... when I uninstalled, voila, my screen suddenly got bright again. So now I'm wondering if I have to have the driver? Computer seems to be working fine without it. I just don't want to keep having to install/uninstall if there is no need for this.

The brightness adjustment has to do with the Power Saving settings. When no driver is installed, the brightness cannot be set properly, so it is always 100%. But then you miss in functionality (no proper 3D acceleration etc). I would install Intel drivers (not Microsoft) and then go to Control Panel (desktop version) and Power Options. Make sure brightness is always 100% and that's it!

 

[gratefulgator]

Hi again - removing the driver worked great. spapakons - I actually like the brightness at 100%. So far I can't tell I'm missing any functionality - I just know now I can see! (Really visually impaired, too.) I had an Intel driver installed.

So now - the new issue I am having is that the driver keeps re-installing itself. So I just keep uninstalling it, but is there any way to stop it from re-installing? If not, no biggie, guess I'll just keep uninstalling.

 

[spapakons]

The solution is to install the driver, but force screen brightness at 100% through power options. Click on the "Change Plan Settings" and then on "Change Advanced Power Settings". Expand Display to see Enable Adaptive Brightness and then change it to Off. I'm currently using a desktop PC, so there is no such setting, but in an notebook there should also be a percentage of the screen brightness. Make sure it is 100% in all cases and that's it.

 

[Chelsea]

Found out how turn up the screen brightness, but, it won't let me turn it down again, lol.

1. click the battery icon at the toolbar, select more power settings, then select change plan, and then click on advanced power settings.

2. Scroll down to Screen, and set every option to 100% (Except shutting down the screen after minutes)

3. Press the Windows button + Q and search 'Device Manager'

4. Scroll down to Screen cards, double click your current one (Mine is Intel HD Graphics 400)

5. A little window should up with multiple tabs, select Driver.

6. First deactivate your current unit, then it should go black for a second or two, then right after active it, and your screen's brightness should be at 100%

NOTE: You can't turn down your screen brightness unless you do step 2, with different percent.

Also, sorry if my English wasn't spot on.

Hope it worked!

 

[astonvilla65]

Hey, I have a Samsung ATIV6, this issue sucks. I try and set a plan where the brightness is full but to no avail, it seems my laptop wants to goto full brightness when it wants and I have no say. I need to look at the previously mentioned driver because this issue is frustrating, please any help

 

[HenriettaB]

Hi, just joined to try and fix this problem, and after starting to follow spapakons' great instructions I found out that there's actually just an option to restore the driver back a version- so no need to uninstall/install new driver- and it fixes the brightness issue!

Not sure if this is unique to my Samsung Series 3 NP370R5E laptop (I'm not the most tech savvy), but I'd thought I'd share just in case.

My computer (or 'This PC' as Windows 8.1 decided to change it to)> Manage > Device Manager > Display Adaptors > Right click 'Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000' or at least in my case > Properties > Driver Tab > Roll Back Driver


Couldn't believe the update even had this problem, but thanks so much to everyone on this forum for being so helpful!

 

[dculpster]

Having to restorer back to the other driver every couple days because my computer keeps auto updating and "fixing" this. It's super annoying. Is there anyway to fix this?

 

[Caund]

I am having a huge annoying problem with my samsung ATIV Book 4. It won't let me adjust the screen brightness at all. I have tried all the different ways with the fn buttons. Going to settings, changing the battery savings plan and brightness there. I have tried disabling my drive and restarting my computer. My drive is a 10.18.10.3621 and I have windows 8.1, ever since I updated to windows 8.1 it does not want to change. This is very irritating and I cannot figure out how to fix it.

 

[bonitalaurita]

Hi all,
Thought I'd create an account just to say thank you as I'm completely useless with computers and you helped a lot.
I've got a Samsung Ativ book 4 and just got this problem this morning. I probably only got it so recently because I kept putting off updating to 8.1. Tried all the different ways to adjust the brightness but as much as the bar went up and down, brightness didn't change.
I took your advice and looked into the Intel HD Graphics 4000 which I also found to be the culprit. I think what I've done is reverted back to a (way) older one and it seems to have solved it (although I'm not sure how long it'll last).

Basically: Win+w -> device manager -> Display adapters -> right click Intel(R)...4000 -> Update Driver Software -> Browse my computer for older software -> Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer -> Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 Version: 9.17.10.2963 (I had 10.18.10.3368 before) -> Next -> restart.
Seems to be working alright so far.

 

[spapakons]

Hi all,
Thought I'd create an account just to say thank you as I'm completely useless with computers and you helped a lot.
I've got a Samsung Ativ book 4 and just got this problem this morning. I probably only got it so recently because I kept putting off updating to 8.1. Tried all the different ways to adjust the brightness but as much as the bar went up and down, brightness didn't change.
I took your advice and looked into the Intel HD Graphics 4000 which I also found to be the culprit. I think what I've done is reverted back to a (way) older one and it seems to have solved it (although I'm not sure how long it'll last).

Basically: Win+w -> device manager -> Display adapters -> right click Intel(R)...4000 -> Update Driver Software -> Browse my computer for older software -> Let me pick from a list of drivers on my computer -> Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 Version: 9.17.10.2963 (I had 10.18.10.3368 before) -> Next -> restart.
Seems to be working alright so far.

Yes, that was the issue. Microsoft drivers provide only basic functionality, they don't support all features of the hardware. That is why I always prefer and recommend OEM (original manufacturer) drivers. It is better to have an old Intel graphics driver than having the latest Microsoft driver. This goes for everything else. Microsoft drivers should only be installed if there is none OEM driver. Unfortunately this is the case with many old printers as well. With MS drivers they just print on normal/draft and a very limited range of papers (usually only plain) while with OEM drivers they have special printing mode and support many paper types and sizes...

Fortunately there is some backward compatibility with older Windows drivers, that is if you cannot find Windows 8, use 7 or Vista. At the worst case you can also use Windows XP (for 32-bit windows only). I would rather install an old Vista OEM driver than the latest Microsoft Windows 8 driver for the same hardware. I hope you get the idea...

 

[capella]

SOLVED FOR ME
I had the same problem on two laptops from different manufacturers (Lenovo and Toshiba), but both running Win8.1. On both laptops the manufacturer's display brightness keys wouldn't work, the brightness control in the Charms bar wouldn't work and I didn't even have the brightness controls available in the Power Options plan settings.

I found this after many hours of searching. Many of the suggestions have to do with the display driver, and while that worked for some people, I had tried every method that was different from the rest - until I found this one:

1. In Device Manager (Windows Key + C --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Device Manager)
2. Click on the arrow next to Monitors to expand it (my guess is you have "PnP-Monitor (Standard)" showing).
3. Right-click that and select "Update Driver Software...".
4. Then click on "Browse my computer for driver software".
5. Then click on "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer". You should see something similar to this: Since I had PnP-Monitor (Standard) selected when I had the problem, I selected Generic PnP Monitor.
6. Select whatever wasn't installed before and click Next.
7. It will go through the installation and then you can click "Close".

Now try your brightness keys on your laptop keyboard or the brightness control in the Win Charms bar.

I really hope this worked for you because if you've gotten this far, you've probably been trying to fix it for a long time!

 

[tsm]

SOLVED FOR ME

I really hope this worked for you because if you've gotten this far, you've probably been trying to fix it for a long time!

Wow, amazing. For me, it was because I had another nonstandard monitor driver (for a remote desktop app). I have been dealing with this for months now, so this is great to finally fix.

Odd that you'd have posted this when you did, given the thread activity and stuff. Maybe earlier in 2015 a windows update made it so that any deviation in the monitor breaks the keyboard function keys. Odd.

 

[born2kill]

Problem Fixed !

I had the same problem with Windows 8 once and also with Windows 10. Both times I simply uninstalled the driver of `Display adapters` and then reinstalled it. Problem fixed !

 

[zeros]

SOLVED FOR ME
I had the same problem on two laptops from different manufacturers (Lenovo and Toshiba), but both running Win8.1. On both laptops the manufacturer's display brightness keys wouldn't work, the brightness control in the Charms bar wouldn't work and I didn't even have the brightness controls available in the Power Options plan settings.

I found this after many hours of searching. Many of the suggestions have to do with the display driver, and while that worked for some people, I had tried every method that was different from the rest - until I found this one:

1. In Device Manager (Windows Key + C --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Device Manager)
2. Click on the arrow next to Monitors to expand it (my guess is you have "PnP-Monitor (Standard)" showing).
3. Right-click that and select "Update Driver Software...".
4. Then click on "Browse my computer for driver software".
5. Then click on "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer". You should see something similar to this:View attachment 57150 Since I had PnP-Monitor (Standard) selected when I had the problem, I selected Generic PnP Monitor.
6. Select whatever wasn't installed before and click Next.
7. It will go through the installation and then you can click "Close".

Now try your brightness keys on your laptop keyboard or the brightness control in the Win Charms bar.

I really hope this worked for you because if you've gotten this far, you've probably been trying to fix it for a long time!

I was having the same problem on a clean install of Windows 10. I changed it from Standard to Generic and it worked immediately. Thanks!

 

[Teona10]

Yeah, it was an update to the Intel HD Graphics 4000 driver. More specifically, it was the 10.18.10.3316 version that was incompatible.

can you please explain to me how have you fixed it? how do I get to the drivers, etc. in steps?
thank you!

 

[spapakons]

Go at Intel's site, select Support, Drivers, and then search for HD 4000 or whatever graphics you have. Download the last version of the drivers and install it. Restart the computer to take effect. Have a look at the Control Panel -> Device Manager (if you don't see the Device Manager, click View as -> Large Icons). Then expand monitor and see if it is "Generic PnP monitor". If it is not, right-click on it and select Update Driver. Then select the last option and again the last option. You should see a list of devices. If there is not "Generic PnP monitor" in the list, uncheck the box to show only compatible models. Then you should find it at the standard monitor types. Select it and proceed to install it, even if windows warn you it cannot verify compatibility. Restart your computer and you should be OK.