Brightness adjuster not found in control panel

Question

I cant seem to find the brightness adjuster in my laptop after I reformatted it with windows 7 ROG Rampage(64 bit). My laptop is HP Pavilion dm4-1209tx. I also checked with the HP website and my drivers are all up to date. I also tried installing HP Quick Launch but was unable to do so probably because it is not supported by my OS. I've run out of ideas anymore. Any advice? Thanks!

Solution 1

I've had the same problem once. For me, the trouble maker was TeamViewer's mirror driver. Uninstalling the mirror driver fixed the problem for me and the brightness adjust controls started working again.

I've contacted TeamViewer about this problem and it has been confirmed by TeamViewer support staff although they don't consider it a bug. Here's their response:

Thank you for your interest in TeamViewer.

This is a known issue, if the monitor driver is installed you lose your brightness settings. IF you want to recover them, you need to uninstall this driver and restart your computer.

If we may of further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us again.

To uninstall the monitor driver, follow these steps:

1. Start TeamViewer
2. Under Extras → Options → Advanced → Show advanced options, look for Advanced network settings and click on the Uninstall button beside Install monitor driver

If you don't have TeamViewer on your computer, make sure you don't also have similar software (LogMeIn, RealVNC, etc.) that can install a monitor driver. To check if your computer's monitor is using one of these mirror drivers, do the following:

1. Start Device Manager (Win+R → "devmgmt.msc" → OK)
2. Find your computer monitor under "Monitors"
3. Double click on the device and check if the properties windows says something like this:

If it does, you need to find and uninstall the respective monitor driver.

Solution 2

Quick analysis

When Windows can't find the correct driver for a graphic card it will use the Standard VGA Graphics Adapter driver, which is generic and provides basic video functionality only.

According to the official specifications, the laptop has switchable graphic cards. This means the computer actually got two different graphics cards: Intel HD Graphics and AMD Radeon HD 6370M. The first one is integrated into the CPU and is energy efficient; the second one is discrete (or dedicated) and is more powerful.

The system can let you choose which graphic card to use, while defaulting to the integrated one to prolong battery life. Switchable solutions are based on custom hardware, and require specific drivers provided by manufacturers in order to work as intended.

Additionally, the the brightness adjustment was available before formatting. This suggests that the issue can be tracked down to a missing driver.

Further reading

• What is "switchable graphics cards" in laptops?
• Graphics processing unit - GPU forms

---

Resolution

Some manufacturers provide automated tools to check whether the drivers are up-to-date, but sometimes they might fail to properly detect the installed hardware, thus requiring manual intervention.

1. Download an install the latest graphics drivers available:

   • Windows 7 x86 (32-bit)
     http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?os=4062&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=5040973

   • Windows 7 x64 (64-bit)
     http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?os=4063&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=5040973

2. Restart Windows.

Comments

[and31415]

Which graphic card driver version are you currently using?

[LPChip]

By brightness adjuster, do you mean how bright the backlight of the display is, or do you want to increase the gamma and brightness settings to improve the color contrast? I know the answer to both, but its essential to know which one you mean. Backlight brightness = Power settings, contrast = Display, Calibrate colors.

[user3360031]

@and31415 I have the standard VGA Graphics Adapter and AMD Radeon HD 6300M Series. Is that what you mean? Sorry if I dont know much.

[user3360031]

@LPChip I meant the backlight of the display. Coz right now it's very bright and I cant adjust it to dim.

[and31415]

@user3360031 Your laptop has indeed two graphic cards: an integrated one (Intel HD Graphics), and a dedicated one (AMD Radeon HD 6300M). Make sure to download and install both drivers available in the official HP support page. Then restart Windows, and check whether you can adjust the screen brightness.

[user3360031]

@and31415 I already checked it in the HP website. They have this feature where they scan my laptop and the result was that my drivers are all up to date. SHould I just reinstall my drivers?

[and31415]

@user3360031 Install them manually then, just to be sure. Were you able to adjust the brightness before formatting?

[user3360031]

@and31415 Yup. Everything works fine before formatting. Question, my OS is ROG. Is that under Windows7?

[and31415]

@user3360031 Yes, under Windows 7 64-bit.

[Vinayak]

@user3360031: Do you have TeamViewer installed?

[user3360031]

@and31415 it's working now. manually installation did the trick..thanks much! :)

[user3360031]

That's my problem here coz there is no adjuster for brightness in the Power Settings. Here is the note I read from the microsoft website: "If the Screen brightness slider isn't available, your laptop might not support brightness adjustment or you might need to update your display drivers." So I cant manually adjust it coz the slider is no where be found. For the hot keys, HP has quick launch but I cant install it probably because its not supported by my OS which is ROG

[LPChip]

Does it show you the ability to configure for battery and powercord settings? or do you only see "turn off the display: never and put the computer to sleep: never? If the last one, it doesn't detect you're using a laptop.

[LPChip]

I use TeamViewer 9 on my laptop, and I do have the sliders there. Maybe they fixed the issue since TV9.

[Vinayak]

@LPChip: I use TeamViewer 9 too and I can confirm that the problem is still there. You only face this problem IF you have installed the TeamViewer monitor driver. It is not the same as just having TeamViewer installed. As shown here the button would read "Uninstall" if you have the driver installed.

[LPChip]

thanks for the clarification. I did not install the TV mirror driver, as TV works very well without, so I don't need it.

[Ahmed]

Thank you this solved the brightness issue for my computer! +1 for reporting to teamviewer already :)

[Jake Bathman]

For anyone still frustrated by this issue, it still exists in TeamViewer 11. I'll also be contacting their support about this issue, because it is most certainly a bug.

[philk]

Insane, that they still do not consider that a bug. And furthermore... I wonder what the driver has to fiddle with screen brightness anyway. Its not like that the image they send over is dimmed when the screen is dimmed, is it?

[Anil Mathew]

Had the same problem with LogMeIn monitor driver. After un-installation, the brightness control was back.

[fixer1234]

Welcome to Super User. As a Q&A site, the intention is that answer posts just provide a solution. Commentary and rants are really distracting, and reduce the effectiveness and value of the answer. Can you clean this up to better focus on your solution? Thanks.