Screen Saturates when unplugged

[MaxQ]

Hello all!!
I am so glad I found this place, thank you.
Here is my issue:
I loaded Windows 7 on my laptop and everything works just perfect. However, when I unplug from power the screen saturates or goes to a white screen with only the darkest colors showing up. Impossible to do anything while unplugged. But as soon as I plug back into power, about
3-5 seconds later the resolution comes back. Here are a couple pics of the same screen plugged/unplugged.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
MaxQ

 

[Anthony]

Hi MaxQ,

This is by design on a laptop, its the power saving kicking in.
There sould be a keyboard option to increase brightness/contrast (functionkey)
You could also change your power options in control panel but you will use your battery quicker.

 

[MaxQ]

Thanks Anthony for the quick reply. But I have change my power options to "High Performance" and no change.

 

[Barman58]

Hi MaxQ

Try typing "mobility" into the Start Menu search bar or go to Mobility Centre via Control panel an see if there is an option there. If not it may be a utility that was supplied by the laptop manufacturer

 

[Anthony]

Have you updated all your drivers? chipset, gfx, sound etc.

 

[MaxQ]

Hi MaxQ

Try typing "mobility" into the Start Menu search bar or go to Mobility Centre via Control panel an see if there is an option there. If not it may be a utility that was supplied by the laptop manufacturer

Yes ok, under Windows Mobility Center I have four options.

Volume

Battery Status: Set to High Performance then tried Balanced no difference.

Sync Center

Presentation Settings

Not sure what to change. Under the battery I have tried all three options
High Performance, Balanced and Power Saver. None of these has fixed the problem.
Also,
I have re-installed the video driver from Dell and no fix.

 

[razy60]

have you tried going into: control panel, performance information and tools,adjust visual performace(ensure its on let windows decide), then adjust power settings,(at the bottom the brightness slide should be to the right),choose what the power buttons do,should be set to balanced, click change plan settings it should then give you the option to change brightness etc when on battery power.

 

[MaxQ]

Ok I tried that. I couldn't find the Brightness slide though. But I did go into my turn ON/OFF contrast and turned on High contrast. Now this let me see all the text on screen but everything else was black. Not the visual experience you see even looking at this page.

 

[lappydog]

Hello all!!
I am so glad I found this place, thank you.
Here is my issue:
I loaded Windows 7 on my laptop and everything works just perfect. However, when I unplug from power the screen saturates or goes to a white screen with only the darkest colors showing up. Impossible to do anything while unplugged. But as soon as I plug back into power, about
3-5 seconds later the resolution comes back. Here are a couple pics of the same screen plugged/unplugged.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
MaxQ

That looks like you have more problems than power saving settings. I could not get my laptop to look that bad with the power saving options if I tried to make it look bad, Impossible.
What are your specs and how old is your laptop? I think you have a driver issue.

 

[MaxQ]

Dell XPS laptop 2.5 yrs Intel 1.73GHz processor, 1 GB memory, 80 GB Hard drive running WinXP no issues until I got a virus/worm that took over my pc. re-formatted and Loaded Win7 to try. I really like this O/S it's a lot faster than my Vista system desktop. I know this issue is gotta be some sort of setting or tweaking to make it work properly.

 

[lappydog]

Video card and driver version?

 

[roy69]

Boot into your bios while plugged in.
When you are in the bios pull the plug and see what happens.
If the same thing happens this will tell you it has nothing to do with software.
How good is the battery on your laptop, a battery will never give the same reliability as mains power.

 

[baarod]

Hello all!!
I am so glad I found this place, thank you.
Here is my issue:
I loaded Windows 7 on my laptop and everything works just perfect. However, when I unplug from power the screen saturates or goes to a white screen with only the darkest colors showing up. Impossible to do anything while unplugged. But as soon as I plug back into power, about
3-5 seconds later the resolution comes back. Here are a couple pics of the same screen plugged/unplugged.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
MaxQ

Terribly sorry to be so late to the party, mate. That's Intel power saving with an integrated GPU. You've got a 910/915GM(S), yes?

Untick this box here:

 

[MaxQ]

How do I find that? I did a search for Intel graphics, Intel power, Intel
But nothing with that Intel Power saving.
Yes, Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family

 

[MaxQ]

OMG!!! I fixed it! Horraayy!!! Thank you guys for all your time and help. This was the issue:
In Device Manager I found two of these:
Mobile Intel® 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express Chipset Family
Mobile Intel® 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express Chipset Family

Wondering why I had 2 running at the same time I just right clicked on the second one and disabled it. And Boom all is good.
Although, things aren't as sharp or crisp i.e. text is slightly blurry.

 

[baarod]

1) Right click the desktop, a shortcut menu displays.
2) Select "Graphic Properties..." from the menu.
3) The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Mobile window displays.
4) Select the "Display Settings" tab on the left of the window.

You should now see the dialog in the screen shot I posted earlier.

Edit: Response to last post.

The blurry text is due to the fact that your display is not set to the native resolution of the flat panel. Re-enable the secondary display interface in Device Manager and perform the steps above as well as setting the flat panel resolution to the native settings displayed here:

 

[MaxQ]

OK this what I did. I did not have Intel Graphics Media Accelerator for Mobile. So I google it and downloaded/installed the one for Intel 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express Chipset Family. Then I unchecked the Intel Power Saving mode.
Thank you that worked perfectly!

Clicked on the Information button and then Notebook tab.
Maybe I'm blind but I do not see where I can change Flat Panel resolution to the native settings displayed?

 

[baarod]

OK this what I did. I did not have Intel Graphics Media Accelerator for Mobile. So I google it and downloaded/installed the one for Intel 915GM/GMS, 910GML Express Chipset Family. Then I unchecked the Intel Power Saving mode.
Thank you that worked perfectly!

Clicked on the Information button and then Notebook tab.
Maybe I'm blind but I do not see where I can change Flat Panel resolution to the native settings displayed?

You don't change it there. Use the Windows 7 Screen resolution control panel to change it to the best value shown on the Notebook tab. In my case it was 1400x1050.

 

[MaxQ]

Thank you so much Baarod. You really helped me out. Your the bomb!

 

[baarod]

That's what I show up for.