Windows 7 64-bit Brightness controls suddenly dead

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Level 1

25 points

Windows 7 64-bit Brightness controls suddenly dead

Soooo, whenever I boot up into Windows, regardless of what OS X's brightness was set to, Windows starts itself out at max brightness. Not a big deal, I thought, as I can just turn it down every time I reboot.

Then yesterday I was digging around in the taskbar battery -> Power Options settings, and went to Change Plan Settings, where I found I could adjust the brightness level! Awesome! So I set it as low as it would go without shutting off my backlight. Aaaand that's when the problems started.

I was unable to use my F1 and F2 keys to adust brightness anymore. The on-screen UI simply wouldn't show up. I could pull up the settings again and change it that way, but it was a bit of a pain. Oddly enough, there was no way to simply turn that setting off, i.e. make it ignore the little slider bar.

So eventually I got used to it being on lowest-possible brightness, and used it like normal. Then I rebooted, and the problems grew.

As usual, the system started out at max brightness as soon as windows loaded up, and of course the F buttons still didn't work. But... I clicked the battery, clicked Power Options, clicked Change Plan Settings... and suddenly, the brightness option was no longer there. Huh. I'm stuck on max brightness with no way to turn it down.

So of course I go over to Control Panel to enable my ambient light sensor. No dig. Nothing happens. F*ck.

Soo then I go online and look up solutions, pull up my Boot Camp Control Panel, and what's this? There's a brightness tab! That wasn't there last time I poked around in it's settings... Hmm. So, I tentatively adjust this, click Apply--and nothing happens. Okay, well it's Windows, so maybe I just have to reboot.

Nope. Still nothing.

Short of digging around and uninstalling/reinstalling drivers, I have done everything I've found to do and then some. I use the Windows partition to do things like PhotoShop and LiveStream, and that's how I earn my money right now, and having this thing at max brightness+photoshop+livestream is really overheating it, the last thing I want to do is push this too far and burn it up.

I'm on a mid-2012 MBA, 13", Bootcamping between whatever the current OSX is and Windows 7 64-bit. If there's any other system information I need to provide I am willing and able to do so, just let me know.

I really need this fixed.

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012), Windows 7

Posted on Aug 22, 2013 8:13 PM

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Answer 1

Stryker295 Author

Level 1

25 points

Aug 22, 2013 8:41 PM in response to Stryker295

And yes, I've also booted holding Command+R because apparently that resets the ram or something.

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Answer 2

ranvel

Level 1

18 points

Aug 25, 2013 6:04 PM in response to Stryker295

Command + R *should* take it to a recovery console. Command + Option + P + R resets the PRAM, but that doesn't sound like your fix.If all of your buttons are working fine on OSX side, I would ignore PRAM / NVRAM / SMC reset tricks, since these are tested as working fine.

I would say you should probably reinstall the drivers for bootcamp. I tried this with 5 in Windows 8 and it gives you an option to repair. The reason I say this is because the UI isn't showing up, which means that it's using another driver.

If this doesn't work, go into device manager and then roll back to your previous settings.

One more thing comes to mind. Do you ever use Parallels or VMWare to load your bootcamp partition? They have their own driver packages which can cause some unwanted behavior when using windows natively.

One last thing you can do is try to by-pass the GUI powerplan entirely. You can use the Powercfg command, which, as it happens, has instructions on how to forcefully set the brightness values. You probably won't be able to make it through these instructions since you will get an error at some point, but that will give us more diagnostic information.

Good luck!

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Answer 3

Stryker295 Author

Level 1

25 points

Aug 25, 2013 6:18 PM in response to ranvel

I have actually never tried booting that partition through Parallels, I didn't realize you could do that but it wouldn't be terribly useful in the long-term.

What about re-installing Windows (wiping the partition and starting over)? Wouldn't that fix it?

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Answer 4

ranvel

Level 1

18 points

Aug 25, 2013 6:30 PM in response to Stryker295

That would fix the issue, yes. But if your software configuration is causing the problem, then you might get back to the same place in short order.

One thing that comes to mind is that Adobe has a screen lighting panel that automatically adjusts some of your screen settings, I'm not sure if it adjusts brightness as well, but it might be something similar. I just don't want you to go through all of that work and then end up in the same spot.

You could install the software peice by piece, though, and then see when the problem comes about and then you would know exactly what was causing it and provide that information.

Cheers!

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Answer 5

Stryker295 Author

Level 1

25 points

Aug 25, 2013 6:38 PM in response to ranvel

It wasn't anything I installed that did this, I just looked at some settings and Windows derped. If I reinstall Windows and don't adjust those I should be fine.

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Answer 6

Stryker295 Author

Level 1

25 points

Sep 2, 2013 3:02 PM in response to Stryker295

So, went through backing up / deleting files and programs to prepare for a partition wipe... And after I'd uninstalled EVERYTHING, brightness was working. I have no idea what's going on anymore but at least reinstalling windows should fix it.

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