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pwhe23 Author

Level 1

5 points

Bootcamp 3.2 Windows 7 Brightness

I am running Windows 7 on a new 11.6 MacBook Air and I just upgraded my Bootcamp to 3.2. Clicking the brightness buttons (fn + F1) causes the little brightness icon to come up and move up or down, but the actual screen brightness won't change and stays at 100%. I don't remember this happening before I upgraded (but the computer is brand new). How can I fix this.

MacBook Air 11.6, Windows 7

Posted on Dec 1, 2010 7:38 PM

143 replies

Apr 8, 2011 1:13 PM in response to ckahn

I just got home and installed the "update" through Apple Software Update in OSX. As far as I know, nothing has changed in the brightness department (read: not fixed). I have yet to figure out if it still hangs at shutdown. I wonder if there's a corresponding update in OSX?

Also, Catalyst 11.3 is out, so maybe that might be worth a shot... hmmm...

Apr 10, 2011 7:24 AM in response to Polytonic

Okay, brightness is still broken, but I think the update did fix the hanging at shutdown/problem with closing certain applications at shutdown. So that's good.

There was no OSX update that I'm aware of. Catalyst 11.3 still has no support for my GPU (6750M), so... I guess we're back to the drawing board. If anyone wants to try the Catalyst 11.4 drivers...

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Catalyst114earlypreview.aspx

Message was edited by: Polytonic

Apr 10, 2011 4:01 PM in response to pwhe23

Well this is interesting. Brightness seems to be fixed for me... what did I change? What did I change? Hmmm, I'm not sure.

In the past hour, I've updated CCleaner, installed the JDK (x64), disabled GoogleUpdate on startup, and disabled Catalyst Control Center at startup...

I'll keep working around.

TJCacher

Level 1

5 points

Apr 12, 2011 4:10 AM in response to pwhe23

Hmmm - I have found a solution to this problem that works reliably for me, and I posted it a few days ago, but no one has replied to my posting to say whether it is working for them or not.

When the problem occurs for me, I can reliably fix it by doing the following:

1) Reboot Windows 7 (I have the 64-bit version) in safe mode by holding the F8 key down during the Windows boot.

2) Select the option "Safe Mode with Networking"

3) Login to your normal account

4) Simply reboot Windows normally

When I do this, my brightness buttons, F1 and F2, reliably work again to display the brightness overlay and dim and brighten my 2011 MacBook Pro's screen.

Perhaps this will work for someone else. If not, I can't understand why it is working so reliably for me.

This technique has worked every time I've tried it (four times now) and has worked both before and after applying the latest Bootcamp upgrade from Apple.

I'm still not sure what is causing the problem to happen, but this seems to fix it for me for a few days until it happens again.

ckahn

Level 1

18 points

Apr 12, 2011 6:43 AM in response to TJCacher

TJCacher wrote:
Hmmm - I have found a solution to this problem that works reliably for me, and I posted it a few days ago, but no one has replied to my posting to say whether it is working for them or not.

When the problem occurs for me, I can reliably fix it by doing the following:

1) Reboot Windows 7 (I have the 64-bit version) in safe mode by holding the F8 key down during the Windows boot.

2) Select the option "Safe Mode with Networking"

3) Login to your normal account

4) Simply reboot Windows normally

When I do this, my brightness buttons, F1 and F2, reliably work again to display the brightness overlay and dim and brighten my 2011 MacBook Pro's screen.

Just tried it. Doesn't work for me.

Running Windows 7 x64 with Radeon driver 8.812.0.0 dated 04/01/2011.

TJCacher

Level 1

5 points

Apr 12, 2011 7:04 AM in response to ckahn

Ok - sorry it didn't work for you. It's worked for me each time I've tried it, so I thought it might be worth seeing if it worked for others.

I'm running the exact same driver version as you, on a fully-patched Windows 7 64-bit install. The only other relevant information I can provide is that when I first noticed this problem, I completely uninstalled the Catalyst control panel software as well as the Bootcamp video driver and then used the install DVD that came with my Mac to completely reinstall the bootcamp drivers from scratch. I have not reinstalled any of the Catalyst software at this time. Might be worth trying if you've got the time and the problem is vexing enough to you.

The brightness controls did not work for me immediately after reinstalling the Bootcamp drivers, but they worked after I then did the Windows safe mode technique.

The controls have stopped working another three times since then (I do a lot of gaming on Windows, so I use it quite a bit) - seems about every two or three days I see the problem re-occur. Each of the three additional times, merely starting in safe mode and then immediately rebooting seems to restore the functionality for a few more days.

The last time the problem occurred for me was on the second reboot after installing the newest Bootcamp patch from Apple.

ckahn

Level 1

18 points

Apr 12, 2011 2:00 PM in response to TJCacher

TJCacher wrote:
Ok - sorry it didn't work for you. It's worked for me each time I've tried it, so I thought it might be worth seeing if it worked for others.

I'm running the exact same driver version as you, on a fully-patched Windows 7 64-bit install. The only other relevant information I can provide is that when I first noticed this problem, I completely uninstalled the Catalyst control panel software as well as the Bootcamp video driver and then used the install DVD that came with my Mac to completely reinstall the bootcamp drivers from scratch.

How do you uninstall the Boot Camp drivers before performing a reinstall?

TJCacher

Level 1

5 points

Apr 12, 2011 3:12 PM in response to ckahn

Here's what I did:

1) Start the Windows Device Manager (search for "Device Manager" in the Windows start menu's "search programs and files" search box - it should be the first entry found under "Control Panel" items)

2) Open the "Display Adapters" node from the device tree - you should see "AMD Radeon HD 6750M"

3) Right click on "AMD Radeon HD 6750M" and choose the option "Uninstall" from the context menu.

4) I ticked the item for "Delete the driver software for this device" since I knew I would want to reinstall the version from the DVD, even if it was older.

Hope this isn't just a wild goose chase for you. Good luck.

TJCacher

Level 1

5 points

Apr 12, 2011 3:22 PM in response to TJCacher

OK - I just saw the brightness controls stop working again, and instead of doing the safe mode reboot, I just did a normal reboot, and the controls are working again. It's possible that I just thought the safe mode technique was working because it seemed to work once for me, and I always just did it that way each time afterwards and the controls worked again. This is likely just a red herring, and I apologize if anyone has wasted their time on it.

On the other hand, I'm now wondering if operating the machine heavily in 3D graphics mode (gaming, in other words) is increasing the probability of the problem re-ocurring, since I've been heavily gaming the last two days, and have now seen the problem occur twice in two days.

Has anyone else noted reoccurrence of the problem when using their machine in 3D graphics mode extensively? Is anyone else seeing the problem clear up after a reboot?

ckahn

Level 1

18 points

Apr 13, 2011 7:54 AM in response to TJCacher

TJCacher wrote:
Here's what I did:

1) Start the Windows Device Manager (search for "Device Manager" in the Windows start menu's "search programs and files" search box - it should be the first entry found under "Control Panel" items)

2) Open the "Display Adapters" node from the device tree - you should see "AMD Radeon HD 6750M"

3) Right click on "AMD Radeon HD 6750M" and choose the option "Uninstall" from the context menu.

4) I ticked the item for "Delete the driver software for this device" since I knew I would want to reinstall the version from the DVD, even if it was older.

I thought you were saying that you completely uninstalled all the Boot Camp drivers, not just the ATI, so I was wondering which uninstaller removes them all.

Apr 14, 2011 9:16 PM in response to ckahn

ckahn wrote:

TJCacher wrote:
Here's what I did:

1) Start the Windows Device Manager (search for "Device Manager" in the Windows start menu's "search programs and files" search box - it should be the first entry found under "Control Panel" items)

2) Open the "Display Adapters" node from the device tree - you should see "AMD Radeon HD 6750M"

3) Right click on "AMD Radeon HD 6750M" and choose the option "Uninstall" from the context menu.

4) I ticked the item for "Delete the driver software for this device" since I knew I would want to reinstall the version from the DVD, even if it was older.

I thought you were saying that you completely uninstalled all the Boot Camp drivers, not just the ATI, so I was wondering which uninstaller removes them all.

You will have to first uninstall Bootcamp from your computer using the disk. Next, you'll have to go into Add/Remove Programs and delete every single driver package (manually might I add) from the list. Then you'll have to run a cleaner program (e.g. CCleaner) and clean out any junk registry keys and files. That should, in theory, get rid of all the old crap.

With regards to whoever mentioned the heavy 3D-Graphics activity, I've basically used Windows exclusively for gaming. I've had the brightness controls suddenly work on reboot on rare occasions, but I have thusfar been unable to replicate the steps necessary to guarantee that it "works". My current theory involves gfxCardStatus to force either integrated or discrete, then rebooting. My thinking is that if I force it to Dedicated and reboot (not cold boot)... anyway, just a theory.

Also, the method mentioned on how to remove the AMD GFX Driver won't clean it out completely as far as I know. The only method that truly removes the driver from the computer is to use the AMD (Un)installer from the disk, or the Catalyst package downloadable online, and then go into Device Manager and clear out any old entries.

Apr 14, 2011 9:18 PM in response to yannj

yannj wrote:
Another issue :

On windows 7 64 Bits, mac book air late 2010 , bootcamp 3.2
When settings up brightness to 0% (backlight shoud be off), sometimes the backlight flashes...

Your problem I believe isn't related to the GPU at all. Rather, try turning on the Ambient Light Sensor in Windows.

Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Location and Other Sensors -> Light Sensor

Mine was defaulted to off. Enabling it fixed my keyboard backlight problem, and it now properly adjusts to ambient light.

Apr 19, 2011 5:52 PM in response to Charmmy Kitty

iSight I can't help with. Have you tried installing iSight drivers?

I was going to joke that Apple didn't want to ever hear about this issue again, and that was why my account couldn't login, but everything is fixed now. ^^

I've tried Catalyst 11.4 preview drivers and they do not fix the brightness issue.

jokejong

Level 1

14 points

Jun 7, 2011 8:06 AM in response to pwhe23

Guys, you need to install the bootcamp assistant in Windows 7 for the brightness and keys to work.

in addition, boot-camp assistant must be running as a background application for those thigns to work.

IF you can't find bootcamp assistant, i recommend that you 'repair' it from your programs and features control panel option.

i did it with mine and it worked. 🙂

Gogar

Level 1

9 points

Jun 7, 2011 10:58 AM in response to jokejong

awesome !! it works great. to everyone, go to program and features in control panel and repair the boot-camp. the computer would ask permission for restart and once it restarts, the brightness would work.

no more pain to the eyes.

though this is just the first time, i have restarted it, i would check it for further restarts and going to mac and coming here again and see if its still working .. hope it would ..

thanks again

Bootcamp 3.2 Windows 7 Brightness