Windows 7 – Display Brightness Problem

I haven’t posted for a while as I was going to do a post detailing how I installed Mac OSX on my NC10 netbook, but I am going to re-install both Windows 7 and OSX in the near future, this time with the help of a new slimline external DVD-RW, so I will detail what I do this new time I re-install them.

I was having a problem with controlling the display brightness in Windows 7, according to the document that can be downloaded from Microsoft at – http://itwit.in/75663/ there should be Brightness slider in both the Windows Mobility Center (Shortcut – Windows Key+X, or my right clicking the power icon in the system tray) and the Power Options (reached from either by the Controls panel – Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options, or by right clicking on the power icon in the system tray). However it was not present on my system, in fact not of the controls were listed.

I have the Vista version of Samsung’s ‘Easy Display Manager’ installed and this is supposed to enable keyboard hotkeys etc. Well the display brightness keys were only working sporadically, and generally when plugged into the AC power supply.

A quick search around the web revealed little but did see mentions of there possibly being controls in the BIOS to control brightness, So after rebooting my machine, I hit F2 to enter the BIOS and switched to the Boot options and saw the following:-

20090320_BiosScreenshot_0001p

So I toggled the Brightness Mode Control to User Control, by hitting F6 to give the following screen:-

20090320_BiosScreenshot_0002p

I saved the BIOS settings and booted back up to Windows 7, and the shortcut keys on my keyboard to control brightness worked like a dream, however I still could not find the controls in the Windows Mobility Center, or in the Power Options.  I will continue to pursue this though and hopefully write a new post with the updates.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 11:36 am. It is filed under Technology and tagged with , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

10 Responses to “Windows 7 – Display Brightness Problem”

  1. Thomas Morley says:
    March 22, 2009 at 2:05 pm

    Thanks a lot really helpful guide. Brightness issue was really starting to annoy me. Thanks again!!

  2. Nicholas Sims says:
    March 23, 2009 at 9:06 am

    Sweet, thanks man; I only just noticed I could not change my brightness levels!

    Oh, and by the way; The Brightness slider for me is in the ‘Change plan settings’, underneath the drop downs. Hope that helps!

  3. Phil says:
    March 23, 2009 at 9:34 am

    I know that this slider should be there, but it is missing for me, I imagine there is some policy or other hiding it, or possibly because the Samsung power management software has hidden it, when I re-install soon I will definately check this before I install the power mangement software.

  4. jOE says:
    April 2, 2009 at 7:02 pm

    I couldn’t adjust my brightness even after the bios setting was changed (My version of windows 7 is 7068)
    In the end, i installed the Samsung Easy Disply Manager (XP Driver) from their site, and all works well now :)

  5. Phil says:
    April 2, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    Ah right, I used the Vista version of Easy Display Manager, but without the changes to the BIOS the Easy Display Manager didn’t work. Where did you get the 7068 build? I am still using 7000, have they finally made interim builds available on Technet?

  6. jOE says:
    April 3, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    I downloaded it from a torrent site

  7. Brooke says:
    December 1, 2009 at 5:00 am

    I wish I could say this worked for me, but when I go to the Boot Device Priority it does not have anything like the screen shot above. It is just like ‘1st Boot Device: Network’ etc… Am I doing something wrong? Please help me. :[

  8. Phil says:
    December 3, 2009 at 10:10 pm

    So the problem you are having is you have a different motherboard/main board manufacturer – what is the model of the laptop? Have you looked to see if there are any firmware updates?

  9. Brooke says:
    December 4, 2009 at 9:26 am

    I have a Asus K50IJ. When I took it to Geek Squad the dude just told me I would have to wait till Asus came out with a update and that may take a couple weeks to months. What are firmware updates?

  10. Phil says:
    December 4, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    I had a look, there are Windows 7 drivers and updates for your model, go to http://support.asus.com/download and put your model number in the search box on the left and category to search from set to ‘All’.

    You will need to update the BIOS too, so download the the latest BIOS upgrade tool from the list that comes up, you will need the latest BIOS update too, use the tool to update the BIOS. Windows 7 feature support have been added to the BIOS update, so thi swill be a good start, but update all other drivers too.

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