Screen brighter when NOT plugged in (what!?)

Ok, so I made an idiotic decision to see if I could update any drivers recently. A restore point was created, but my laptop decided it didn't like it, and so I can't restore previous settings and I can't properly rollback my graphics card driver. SO, I need some help.

Info:


Gfx driver: Intel HD Graphics 8.15.10.2993 (1/30/13)

Anyway, the problem is, using the FN+arrow keys, my brightness doesn't get bright enough while plugged in, but when on battery it has the full range of brightness all the way down to the dimmest setting. It's as if updating something (like the gfx driver) adjusted some setting. I looked into the brightness settings in the control panel, and everything looks fine. Before today, I hadn't touched the brightness settings in years.

So, I don't know what's up. I don't know why "off battery" I can't have a bright enough display.

(But at least I figured out I wasn't getting cataracts.... heh.)

Help if you can! Thanks!

That's what I meant when I said today I tried playing with the brightness settings. I just now tried resetting to defaults for this setting and nothing changed.

Here's what the defaults are, and how it's set now. In the "basic" settings screen, the brightness for plugged in is set at 100%...

maxie said:

Hi there ... This is more than likely to do with Dell Control Point System Application ... You may need to Re-install it from the Dell website .. Where you can also get your Graphics Driver ...

I'm not sure about that. But I did fiddle with the BIOS LCD Brightness. I restore the defaults, set the max LCD brightness to as bright as I could stand it, and then saved the changes. The only weird thing now is that the brighter I allow the LCD to be, the less "gradient" options there are in brightness levels. In any case, whatever the issue may be, I can now get my screen brighter when plugged in.

I did reinstall the Control Point, but I'm not sure that did anything. If I realize otherwise I'll post after a reboot.

For now, I do notice that when I adjust screen brightness, the "level" indicator that pops up on the screen does not move, it just stays at around 80% full.

It's just all around weird.

Windows Sniper said:

That seems like it has locked itself in the computer settings.

My DV6 did that to me before, and i ended up having to reinstall the graphical drivers to resolve it.

Here ftp://ftp.dell.com/Pages/Drivers/latitude-e5410.html is the driver page for your System, The issue i can see is that your using a later driver for the chipset then is recommended for your machine. That could be the main issue here.

Let us know if that helps in any way.

Do you think I should download one of those 2011 drivers? Not really sure what on that list I need to download.