NP370R5E-A02UK - Cannot adjust screen brightness

Hey,

Sorry for the long winded post, but I thought I'd give as much info as possible.

Just purchased a used Samsung NP370R5E-A02UK laptop from eBay. The laptop was used so I wiped the hard drive and did a completely clean install of Windows 8 Pro (it's currently doing about a billion updates so I haven't installed 8.1 yet).

Everything seems to be working great except for the screen brightness. I cannot adjust it. If I try to adjust it using the function keys, I get a slider in the top left of the screen that moves up and down, but the screen brightness stays the same. If I go into control panel and power settings and try to adjust the brightness there, it still does nothing.

I've done a bit of Googling and people have suggested that it's a problem with the Intel HD Graphics 4000 driver, and to downgrade to an older version.

So I went on the Intel Support site and looked for drivers. They had 2 available - the one that was currently installed on my computer from Jan 2014, and a newer one from March 2014. So it seems that I cannot downgrade my drivers. So I tried the upgrade instead to see if it would make any difference. It hasn't. I still cannot adjust the screen brightness.

I have the Samsung 'Settings' programme installed on my computer from their website, as I have read that you need that to use the FN keys, but it still isn't working.

I've also read that you can fix the problem by uninstalling and reinstalling the Intel driver in Device Manager. I tried this, and my screen went completely crazy and stripy and I could not see anything. So I had to shut down the computer by holding the power button. When I turned on the laptop I got the Samsung logo screen, and then nothing, just darkness. So I restarted the laptop in Safe Mode, and it seemed that the hard reset had messed up the installation of some Windows Updates that were running in the background, so I just had a screen saying something like 'Updates failed, reverting back'. I left it for an hour and this screen was still showing, so I decided just to re-install Windows and start again from scratch.

So this is where I'm up to. Brand new install of Windows 8 Pro, Samsung Settings programme installed, Intel HD Graphics 4000 drivers up to date, and unable to adjust the screen brightness.

Does anyone have any ideas? I don't want to uninstall the Intel driver again in case my screen goes crazy and I have to do another hard power down. What if I disabled the driver rather than uninstalling it, and then re-enabled it. Could this fix my problem, or would it cause the screen to mess up again?

Any help is massively appreciated

 

Download and install Samsung's SW Update software.

This is the gateway to the drivers etc released for your notebook and will include Samsung's version of the Intel graphics driver to work with the brightness controls. You will also need to install Samsung's Settings program which includes the driver that handles the FN key controls.

John

 

Thank you! It worked perfectly. I'm now running a driver from January 2013 as opposed to March 2014, and the brightness adjust is working. Thanks for your help

 

Now you have got it working then you can try over-writing the older graphics driver with the latest version from Intel. I've got a 2014 Intel driver on my NP900X4C and the brightness control is still functional.

John

 

Do you think I should do this? What benefits will the newer driver have over the one I currently have installed? Everything is working perfectly now so I'm tempted just to leave it as it is.

 

Sometimes the newer driver includes optimisation which give a small improvement in performance but if you are happy with what you have then don't try the update.

However, the Intel graphics driver seems to be quite mature, unlike their WiFi driver.

John