3

I cant seem to find the brightness adjuster in my laptop after I reformatted it with windows 7 ROG Rampage(64 bit). My laptop is HP Pavilion dm4-1209tx. I also checked with the HP website and my drivers are all up to date. I also tried installing HP Quick Launch but was unable to do so probably because it is not supported by my OS. I've run out of ideas anymore. Any advice? Thanks!

Hennes
  • 65,142
user3360031
  • 131
  • Which graphic card driver version are you currently using? – and31415 Jun 07 '14 at 10:01
  • By brightness adjuster, do you mean how bright the backlight of the display is, or do you want to increase the gamma and brightness settings to improve the color contrast? I know the answer to both, but its essential to know which one you mean. Backlight brightness = Power settings, contrast = Display, Calibrate colors. – LPChip Jun 07 '14 at 10:01
  • @and31415 I have the standard VGA Graphics Adapter and AMD Radeon HD 6300M Series. Is that what you mean? Sorry if I dont know much. – user3360031 Jun 07 '14 at 10:07
  • @LPChip I meant the backlight of the display. Coz right now it's very bright and I cant adjust it to dim. – user3360031 Jun 07 '14 at 10:08
  • @user3360031 Your laptop has indeed two graphic cards: an integrated one (Intel HD Graphics), and a dedicated one (AMD Radeon HD 6300M). Make sure to download and install both drivers available in the official HP support page. Then restart Windows, and check whether you can adjust the screen brightness. – and31415 Jun 07 '14 at 10:17
  • @and31415 I already checked it in the HP website. They have this feature where they scan my laptop and the result was that my drivers are all up to date. SHould I just reinstall my drivers? – user3360031 Jun 07 '14 at 10:26
  • @user3360031 Install them manually then, just to be sure. Were you able to adjust the brightness before formatting? – and31415 Jun 07 '14 at 10:27
  • @and31415 Yup. Everything works fine before formatting. Question, my OS is ROG. Is that under Windows7? – user3360031 Jun 07 '14 at 10:30
  • @user3360031 Yes, under Windows 7 64-bit. – and31415 Jun 07 '14 at 10:32
  • 1
    @user3360031: Do you have TeamViewer installed? – Vinayak Jun 07 '14 at 10:51
  • @and31415 it's working now. manually installation did the trick..thanks much! :) – user3360031 Jun 07 '14 at 11:45

4 Answers4

7

I've had the same problem once. For me, the trouble maker was TeamViewer's mirror driver. Uninstalling the mirror driver fixed the problem for me and the brightness adjust controls started working again.

I've contacted TeamViewer about this problem and it has been confirmed by TeamViewer support staff although they don't consider it a bug. Here's their response:

Thank you for your interest in TeamViewer.

This is a known issue, if the monitor driver is installed you lose your brightness settings. IF you want to recover them, you need to uninstall this driver and restart your computer.

If we may of further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us again.

To uninstall the monitor driver, follow these steps:

  1. Start TeamViewer
  2. Under Extras → Options → Advanced → Show advanced options, look for Advanced network settings and click on the Uninstall button beside Install monitor driver

If you don't have TeamViewer on your computer, make sure you don't also have similar software (LogMeIn, RealVNC, etc.) that can install a monitor driver. To check if your computer's monitor is using one of these mirror drivers, do the following:

  1. Start Device Manager (Win+R → "devmgmt.msc" → OK)
  2. Find your computer monitor under "Monitors"
  3. Double click on the device and check if the properties windows says something like this: TeamViewer monitor driver

If it does, you need to find and uninstall the respective monitor driver.

Vinayak
  • 10,745
  • I use TeamViewer 9 on my laptop, and I do have the sliders there. Maybe they fixed the issue since TV9. – LPChip Jun 07 '14 at 11:36
  • 1
    @LPChip: I use TeamViewer 9 too and I can confirm that the problem is still there. You only face this problem IF you have installed the TeamViewer monitor driver. It is not the same as just having TeamViewer installed. As shown here the button would read "Uninstall" if you have the driver installed. – Vinayak Jun 07 '14 at 11:42
  • thanks for the clarification. I did not install the TV mirror driver, as TV works very well without, so I don't need it. – LPChip Jun 07 '14 at 11:51
  • Thank you this solved the brightness issue for my computer! +1 for reporting to teamviewer already :) – Ahmed Oct 14 '15 at 02:16
  • For anyone still frustrated by this issue, it still exists in TeamViewer 11. I'll also be contacting their support about this issue, because it is most certainly a bug. – Jake Bathman Mar 27 '16 at 16:26
  • Insane, that they still do not consider that a bug. And furthermore... I wonder what the driver has to fiddle with screen brightness anyway. Its not like that the image they send over is dimmed when the screen is dimmed, is it? – philk Dec 09 '16 at 13:36
  • Had the same problem with LogMeIn monitor driver. After un-installation, the brightness control was back. – Anil Mathew Oct 24 '17 at 05:50
2

Quick analysis

When Windows can't find the correct driver for a graphic card it will use the Standard VGA Graphics Adapter driver, which is generic and provides basic video functionality only.

According to the official specifications, the laptop has switchable graphic cards. This means the computer actually got two different graphics cards: Intel HD Graphics and AMD Radeon HD 6370M. The first one is integrated into the CPU and is energy efficient; the second one is discrete (or dedicated) and is more powerful.

The system can let you choose which graphic card to use, while defaulting to the integrated one to prolong battery life. Switchable solutions are based on custom hardware, and require specific drivers provided by manufacturers in order to work as intended.

Additionally, the the brightness adjustment was available before formatting. This suggests that the issue can be tracked down to a missing driver.

Further reading

Resolution

Some manufacturers provide automated tools to check whether the drivers are up-to-date, but sometimes they might fail to properly detect the installed hardware, thus requiring manual intervention.

  1. Download an install the latest graphics drivers available:

  2. Restart Windows.

Community
  • 1
and31415
  • 14,610
0

There are two ways to in-/ decrease the backlight of the display. One is by installing the HP Hotkey drivers, so you can use fn + whatever key it is on your laptop (sometimesF3 and F4, other times arrow up and arrow down.

The second way that does not require any installation, is by manually changing the setting. This article will go about doing that.

  1. Right click an empty spaece on the desktop and choose Personalize
  2. On the bottom right, click Screen Saver
  3. On the bottom, click Change power settings
  4. Click the Change plan settings on the right side of the powerplan you want to use. (I recommend using High performance if you use the laptop daily and mostly connected to a wall-outlet. (you can find it by clicking Show additional plans)
  5. Click Change advanced power settings
  6. Use the slider for Adjust plan brightness on both On Battery and Plugged in to change the brightness.
LPChip
  • 61,264
  • That's my problem here coz there is no adjuster for brightness in the Power Settings. Here is the note I read from the microsoft website: "If the Screen brightness slider isn't available, your laptop might not support brightness adjustment or you might need to update your display drivers." So I cant manually adjust it coz the slider is no where be found. For the hot keys, HP has quick launch but I cant install it probably because its not supported by my OS which is ROG – user3360031 Jun 07 '14 at 10:24
  • Does it show you the ability to configure for battery and powercord settings? or do you only see "turn off the display: never and put the computer to sleep: never? If the last one, it doesn't detect you're using a laptop. – LPChip Jun 07 '14 at 10:37
-1

I can't stand Microsoft flaws. And or driver issues for not getting along with Microsoft. Who knows but I have the same problem the brightness controls completely disappear and the screen defaults to very bright.

In device manager the quickest way I found was to simply disable your display adapters and enable them instantly. This reboots the drivers and brightness control will be back to normal. But for how long that's the problem. Changing drivers and all the mentioning of power settings is absolutely useless and I wish people that haven't experienced a cure for this would stop leading everyone around in circles. That is why I am writing this.

I have not found the cure it's pissing me off.I only found this quick reboot fix because I am a technician but I am not God. Nobody technically will address this problem but I would love to hear from someone who will propose a genuine fix but truthfully I don't think there is one which means the fix I came up with is probably mine and yours best idea.

Benson
  • 1
  • 1
    Welcome to Super User. As a Q&A site, the intention is that answer posts just provide a solution. Commentary and rants are really distracting, and reduce the effectiveness and value of the answer. Can you clean this up to better focus on your solution? Thanks. – fixer1234 Dec 28 '18 at 09:40