Windows 8 on ASUS notebook, brightness down does not work

Question

Recently my brother installed Windows 8 on his ASUS notebook. He had problems with the FN keys, so he asked me to have a look at it.

I've installed the ATK Package from ASUS found in this other question. This package fixed the problems I had with my own notebook, so I thought it would work for my brother too. However, on his notebook there is still one hotkey that does not work: brightness down (FN+F5).

Whenever that hotkey is pressed, it will only turn the brightness down one step, and after that all hotkeys suddenly stop working. It seems like the entire hotkey driver freezes. After a while (30s to 2m) the on-screen notification from the brightness change suddenly pops back up, and everything seems to work fine again. That is of course until I press FN+F5 again. Strangely, brightness up (FN+F6) works just fine.

I already tried reinstalling both ATK drivers and NVIDIA video drivers, but that did not solve it. I've googled around, and found at least 3 other forums with multiple people experiencing the same problem, with no solution either.

Since I couldn't find anything related on superuser, I'm asking it here. Do you guys have any suggestions on how to solve this problem?

Solution

I had the same problem and had to resort to drivers form Asus Australia to solve my problem.

The mentioned drivers package is ATKPackage_Win7_32_Z100014, which can be accessible, among other locations here.

Comments

[Jasjeev Singh]

Did you remember to select your notebook's model?

[Ramhound]

This is a driver problem. You will need to contact ASUS about this problem so they can fix it. I suggest you try older versions of the ATKACPI driver to see if it will return. I will repeat this is a ATKACPI driver problem its unlikely something you can even fix.

[Rudey]

Where should I have selected the model then? When installing the video drivers? The ATK Package in the link I provided does not seem to care about which model I'm using.

[Rudey]

@Ramhound, are you saying that the problem does not come from the video card drivers?

[Ramhound]

I am just saying this feature that doesn't work is not handled by a display driver.

[Jasjeev Singh]

@lenders it does say select model on that link. Check!

[Rudey]

@JasjeevSingh, I'm not sure what you see, but I only see the option to change model, while the current page displays the package compatible with all ASUS Notebooks. This ATK Package can't be found on a model-specific page. Correct me if I'm talking nonsense :P

[gronostaj]

This is a common problem with ASUS laptops running Windows 8. Notice that probably there's a "safe brightness range" where all hotkeys will behave just as expected, that's somewhere between 20% and 80%. If you go over or under that value hotkey will work only once as you've described. If you don't want to wait until it comes back alive, you can change brightness through system slider, it should instantly wake hotkeys up.

[Goo]

Any one has a solution ? i try many version of ATK package but nothing ... :s