Dell Studio 1745 - Can't Adjust Brightness

For some reason the brightness on my lcd isn't adjustable. It's stuck at full brightness, on battery, on power, doesn't matter. I've had this laptop for about 2 weeks now. When I first got it, the brightness levels were working, but now they are not. OS is Windows 7 Home.

FN - Brightness Down brings up a on screen display showing the brightness level at full and goes down by about 1, though I see no different in the brightness. It doesn't matter how many times I press the button, it never goes down more than 1.

Control Panel -> Display -> Adjust Brightness -> Power Options: The slider at the bottom shows the brightness level at lowest setting. The FN - Brightness adjustment will move this slider up / down on the scale, but there is no change in the screen brightness.

Anyone have any ideas as to why I can not adjust the brightness and how I can get it back to where I can adjust it?

 

Oh yes, I had this *exact* same problem happen with mine - it would got down by 1, no more. I though it did reduce the brightness a little, but I don't recall exactly.

And I know how I fixed it! I had downloaded some optional windows update - I think it was intel something something - not sure about the name. It was supposed to be some hardware driver or something (motherboard driver? not sure). Anyways, after downloading it I noticed the screen brightness problem.

I used system restore to restore the system to a time before I installed the windows update, and the brightness control started working normally again.

There might also be some way to simply uninstall the update, but I'm not sure.

 

There should be a display brightness setting if you boot into the BIOS.

 

Did my suggestion help?

 

System Restore didn't solve the problem, I only had one previous restore option available, so likely it's something that changed before then.

I booted to bios and see NO settings for the display brightness in any of the settings.

 

Aaaaaaaaaaah, bummer. I know Windows keeps uninstall information for those updates. There must be some way to uninstall them...

 

I agree.. Total bummer, as I now have a laptop with a max 3hr battery instead of 5hr. It's not evening dimming when on battery only, doesn't dim based on the power rules settings.. nothing.. it's all or shuts the monitor off, but doesn't dim at all. Tried re-installing the video drivers but no luck - windows says that the drivers are up to date and refuses to reinstall.

 

I did a very quick search and immediately found out how to view and uninstall windows 7 updates...

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24373-windows-update-uninstall-update.html

This other page, also linked to on that first page, offers more detailed instructions on how to get to the list of the updates:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24367-windows-update-view-update-history-details.html

Look for an update with the word "Intel" in the title and try uninstalling that then rebooting. It was an "optional" hardware update for me, if it works take it off the update list.

 

Do you try uninstalling the update? Did it help?

 

I have the exact same problem and the same laptop. I've found the optional update "Intel Corporation - Display - Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family" by going to my updates window then going to "review your update history".

However, when I go to uninstall this update, it does NOT show up on the list. Only the Microsoft windows updates, works, silverlight etc. and Adobe updates are on this list. I have no idea what to do now...

 

I had the same problem with the brightness adjustment on my Studio 1745. I loaded the latest video driver from Intel and it fixed the problem. I am running Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium.

Here is a link to the driver that I installed:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=2991&DwnldID=18336&lang=eng

 

That solved it. Thanks a bunch!

 

I am using windows 7 64bit. I was able to go to intel and search for Intel 4 series express chipset family drivers.
After searching i found the "accelerator" driver for my specific version of windows and after installation the brightness was fully adjustable.
Good Luck!