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    Dim screen while idle?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by InTheZeroYear, Mar 22, 2007.

  1. InTheZeroYear

    InTheZeroYear Notebook Evangelist

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    hey I was playing around on my friends macbook and i saw that about 30 seconds after leaving the notebook idle the screen would dim to a lower brightness.

    I didnt see any settings for something like that in vista's mobility center so i was wondering if there was a software with this option in it.
     
    InTheZeroYear, Mar 22, 2007
    #1
  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    Samsung's Battery Manager software for Samsung notebooks can also dim the display to minimum brightness after a pre-set period of no keyboard activity when running on battery. I expect some other manufacturers provide a similar function. However, I don't know of a general application which can do this.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Mar 22, 2007
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  3. Dutch

    Dutch Notebook Enthusiast

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    Dutch, Mar 22, 2007
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  4. usapatriot

    usapatriot Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Too bad you have to wait a minute minimum before it kicks in since the minimum time before a screensaver kicks in is 1 minute in Windows XP.
     
    usapatriot, Mar 22, 2007
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  5. iza

    iza Notebook Evangelist

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    Also, Powerdimmer doesn't actually save any power; it doesn't dim the backlight, it simply puts a semi-transparent black rectangle over the screen.
     
    iza, Mar 22, 2007
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  6. shaheenarshan

    shaheenarshan Notebook Deity

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    doesnt the mac book sport an ambient senser that adjusts the backlighting according to the surrounding light
     
    shaheenarshan, Mar 22, 2007
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  7. Mobilehavoc

    Mobilehavoc Notebook Consultant

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    If you have an Nvidia card in your laptop their XP drivers have SmartDimmer which dims the backlight to whatever you set it to after it's been idle on battery. Works great.

    They don't have this implemented in Vista yet but hopefully that should be soon.
     
    Mobilehavoc, Mar 22, 2007
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  8. Arla

    Arla Notebook Deity

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    In theory in vista they should all support the ACPI controls for dimming the screen so it should be possible to write a program to do it yourself, now whether they actually support the correct ACPI seems to be open to question (I know I can't do it on my Acer (but I'm running XP not Vista so...)).
     
    Arla, Mar 22, 2007
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