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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

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Jul 17, 2012 4:13 AM in response to The hatter

I swear those nvidia drivers have wrecked my screen, and it likely has to go in for repair at an apple store, now.


what can explain my laptop screen suddenly going like THIS while in windows?????


i just turned it off, then I turn it on, and LOOK, THIS is what it boots up with!


I even try resetting the PRAM 5 times to see if it gets rid of it, and despite hearing the mac sound, each time it resets the screen only goes back to the vertical lines screen.


I hope this prevents someone else from ruining things by trying newer drivers. just go with the stock driver, this aint a gaming machine.


I can't see how the 3.2 bootcamp driver is 'funky', when:


- it works

- nothing goes wrong with the screen. UNLIKE THE ALTERNATIVE OPTION.


Seriously.....works better? easier? i think the opposite.

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Jul 18, 2012 1:30 AM in response to The hatter

Boy do I have an update for you.


It's a PURELY SOFTWARE issue, NOT hardware (but it does, and it always has, affected both the mac part and windows part). (so: yes, I take back my claim that the software has possibly damaged my screen, or at least caused permanent problems...)


When i first took it to an apple store today it really looked to be a hardware issue - the screen itself. I demonstrated the symptoms to them (by merely turning it on), they closed and opened the lid a few times in succession, felt the back of the screen (as if for heat spots or something), and said, 'yeah, we'll have to replace the screen for you and it'll cost you £290'. they also did another stupid thing I won't elaborate on (with regards to EU 2-year warranty and how to go about it, and wasting my time hugely today), but anyway, I came back a second time later in the day and this time, had a much more knowlegeable helpful guy.


he ran a hardware diagnostic thing, and as soon as he plugged it into that diagnostic thing, the screen was normal again.


what i have learned, is that the bios (whether default mac or the third party refit one), has its own 'graphics' it sends to the display. the installed firmwaer can be overridden by one from another source (and make the screen work, ending the vertical lines screen). in the case at the genuis bar, it was their server 'boot from network' thing. to initiate it he pressed 'N' (for network) and connected my mba to their diagnostic testing server (an ethernet->usb adapter into my mba) and look, my screen was normal again. he booted into my mac os x partition and there was even no split screen brightness now - no nothing, just a pure working screen!


He then reckoned that once plugged out, my vertical lines would come straight back but luckily my normal refit booted with a working screen, so it seemed to 'reset' something in my mba's firmware. (my refit???).....


so if this vertical line horrow show turns up again, what i have to do is 'reset' is again - the temp solution for me is to press alt, stick in my OS X install usb stick, and this will impose its own firmware on my mac (it seems), then i say boot into mac os, and then the screen is once more back to (at least usable status) - still with split screen brightness, but at least useable.


so the problem is either refit itself, a corrupted refit (however that has happened. I'm not going to bother to try to fix this permanently, as in 4 months time I'm going to factory reset my MBA and sell it on ebay and upgrade to the new pro, woohoo), or, it's something caused by those newer nvidia drivers TO the refit - I'm not sure and don't care, I'm just happy I've got productivity back at the end of the same day that it went down the drain.

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Jul 29, 2012 12:56 AM in response to pwhe23

Hey guys,


I'm not sure if you figured it out yet but I have a solution.

I'm using Windows 8 Evaluation Copy so these settings may be different depending on which version of Windows you're running


Under Control Panel > Power Options
Look for "Change advanced power settings"


There you will find a "+ Display" dropdown

click that and then select "+ Enable adaptive brightness"


Make sure both options are turned off 🙂


DONE!

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Sep 12, 2012 4:14 PM in response to pwhe23

Among the suggestions on my iMac 21.5in (late2010) I did:


-Holding the option key at boot

-reverting back to the original drivers


Also, I uninstalled Refit which was a boot menu manager that I used for a while. Booting from that menu didn't allow the brightness keys to work at all. Now I just boot from the stock boot menu from the option key and everything works fine.

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Dec 10, 2012 8:13 AM in response to pwhe23

After installing the windows 8 do not run boot camp from setup, but install the individual driver from the windows support folder. Do not install the programme, driver in NVIDIA folder instead delete this folder and download new one from NVIDIA Site some thing like 310 in its name and install. After restarting run windows support folder setup file but only after deleting the NVIDIA folder only. Every thing works. The culprit is the NVIDIA folder in the windows support folder. Enjoy Windows 8 on mac book air

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Jan 8, 2013 11:49 AM in response to Whetu

Booting through default rEFIt breaks the brightness controls in Windows 7.


A similar problem exists with the updated rEFInd package.


A temporary fix for brightness controls after installing rEFInd is to boot your machine via the Option Key, then select the "EFI Boot" option (replacing the Macintosh HD option), which then loads rEFInd.

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Jan 8, 2013 9:52 PM in response to Polytonic

Yes I had such problems on my MBA with screen brightness (and then, screen flickers and vertical coloured lines as if the screen was broken, but it was just, i think, refit wrecking the efi or whatever), on my new MBP now, I have not touched rEFIt with a 60 foot pole, and instead, make the bother to press alt every time I start the macbook, and have that as an effective anti-theft measure anyway - harder to detect my windows os, and i have no password on my never-really-used mac os x partiion, so when they turn it on after stealing it from me they're lured into a beautiful-looking honey trap, filled with screenshot-and-keystrokes-and-webcam-images-dropbox-saving spy tools, things like Prey service for remotely sending you IP addresses/Google Wi-FI GPS-like geo-location info, and functions to wipe your windows OS silently from within the mac partition :P. So I think that's a smart way to do things anyway. JUST USE ALT :).



BTW Vlad I've been watching this thread and want to just say, you are awesome and keep working on those issues and show apple you can do better than them! I hope you can work out that issue that you said Apple wouldn't share their solution to - keep searching <3.....

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Feb 4, 2013 2:20 PM in response to Toaster Strudels

Also if you have a light sensor on your device (iMac or Macbook), enable the sensor from ControlPanel-->Location and Other Sensors. once you have enabled it; your screen will adjust its brightness according to the light conditions of the environment.


Cheers

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Oct 21, 2013 3:34 PM in response to pwhe23

I have been having the issue of no brighness control when running windows through bootcamp for about 6 months now and have not found any applicable solution online.


While messing around trying to figure it out yet again I noticed that my monitor driver was signed by team viewer...


Sure enough clicking the roll driver back button resolved the issue by rolling the driver back to the Microsoft driver...



So long story short:

Right click "My Computer" click properties

Click device manager (lop left of window)

Expand Monitors section

Double Click monitor

Click driver tab


If the driver here is not signed by Microsot or Apple click the roll back button. My driver version is 6.1.7600.16385 (Driver date 6/21/2006)


Rolling this back instantly resolved my issue. I will now propagate this post to all the threads I saw regarding this issue.


I am running windows 7 x64 Ulti on a 15" rMBP.


Best of luck

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Mar 24, 2014 10:01 AM in response to pwhe23

I fixed it.


Hello my friend, I had same issue about brightness of my Macbook Air (late 2010). I installed windows 7 home premium and after having my updates i noticed that brightness was not working. i tried to find some answers from here and found this discussion. However as I can see, no one have answer for this.


Today I just uninstalled Nvidia Gforce update. than i Uninstaled Nvidia control panel. it asked me to restart my mac, and also when it asked restart, the resolution was 800X600 or something like that. It was very big icons. however, after restarting my mac, it gaved me notification that it found video card in this Mac and asked to restart again. i restarted and its gone. now resolution is fine, and F1, F2 brightness buttons work well.. i hope you will fix it.
By the wey, now i entered to control panel>>Programs and features, and there still exist this ones: NVIDIA display control panel / NVIDIA Drivers / NVIDIA Graphics driver 327.02


Tell me if you can fix it like this.

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Apr 24, 2014 8:21 AM in response to varshalomidze

I have a MacBook unibody, late 2010, running Windows 7 Home Premium x64, and also ran into this same problem (no dimming controls) after installing the latest video drivers for the GeForce 9400M. I fixed it by rolling back to the previous driver, as follows:


1. Control Panel -> Device Manager

2. Expand "Display Adapters", right-click on "NVIDIA GeForce 9400M", then select "Properties"

3. Switch to the "Drivers" tab, then left-click "Roll Back Driver"

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Bootcamp 3.2 Windows 7 Brightness

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