Can't adjust brightness on Laptop

I have a lenovo 3000 c200 laptop

I cannot seem to adjust the brightness on windows for some reason.

The fn+ brightness down and up hotkeys don't seem to be working. However i have tested all the other fn hotkeys and the arrows where the brightness is adjusted and they do work.

Like noted above the fn hotkeys are enabled its just the brightness ones don't seem to be working or at least they seem to do nothing.
Any help would be appreciated, as the laptop lcd is too bright and kind of hurts my eyes

The hotkeys have no problem in ubuntu by the way

 

That is a video driver problem. Happens pretty often using Windows 7 drivers in Windows 8.

Can we get more information?

 

Its not running windows 8 though its running windows 7

I updated the drives already

I went to the device manager and put update drivers and it said all current working driver updates are installed already.

Windows updates doesn't have anymore or at least its not showing any latest drivers.

I went to the intel site and manually downloaded downloaded and installed the drivers. There was 1 updated driver update for the graphics however it was completely useless it did nothing.

The brightness adjustment is still rendered useless in windows. As soon as windows boots the screen lights up to max brightness. I was trying to use some random applications to reduce the brightness but i figured i don't need to bother with that since the laptop SHOULD be working with the fn brightness.

 

You can't use reference drivers. You have to use the drivers provided by the laptop manufacturer. Uninstall your video drivers and use them instead.

Reference drivers won't have the correct entries for brightness controls.


Here, take a look at this to understand how this works:

http://adrynsolutions.com/blog/?p=4

Note, I am not suggesting you try these entries, although that is up to you. I personally would not unless you have an HP Envy laptop.

 

The manufacturer doesn't have any drivers for this on their website as it seems the product is discontinued.

Lenovo customer support is not great at all from my past experience. They transferred me like 8 times and finally they transferred me to a department which deals with more technical assistance.

They told me the issue could be solved almost immediately but they were going to charge me close to $90. Like hell i would pay that... this laptop is kind of old.

I was hoping someone from customer support would help me locating the drivers or at the very least email them to me, that seemed fairly hopeless.

If i try your method whats the worst that could happen? Also do you know of any 3rd party dimming screen software you would personally use?

 

Worse case scenario, it won't work.

Let me ask you this, when did it last work and what changed?

 

I had already tried that control panel method nothing worked. It was already in ''balanced mode'' anyways from the start.


The laptop had xp before, the fn hotkeys seemed to work then.

I downloaded and ran this file http://sdrv.ms/So5f9b

Nothing changed and it seemed to do nothing. I am a bit hesitant in regards to messing anymore with my registry though

 

Actually i think something changed a bit

When windows 7 is starting up ( login screen) it turns black for a moment now for around 14 seconds and all i can see is my mouse cursor ( i can move it) then it launches to my desktop.

The fn brightness key still doesn't do anything though. Fairly sure i can just do a system restore to go back right? I have one from yesterday and i haven't done anything new today other than editing part of the registry with this file

 

Yep, system restore will fix it.


I know of a sure-fire way to fix it, but you won't like it.


It requires you reinstalling XP, grabbing registry values and then upgrading back to 7.

You game?

 

This will take a couple of hours for sure.

I have linux in another partition think it will cause problems reinstalling? Before i installed linux i installed windows.

A 3rd party dimming software app would be less of a hassle if there is one that is decent

 

Eh.. i figure i can't lose much other than some time.

At least then if this works i will gain some knowledge regarding this matter , so i went ahead and backed up my files and started.

If an issue comes up with my other partition i will just reinstall again.

 

Actually,

Link me the XP driver download.

 

What do you mean?

I already started i don't have windows 7 anymore, i am on xp

 

Ah, I didn't catch that.

Ok, so what graphics device do you have and is there more than one?

 

I believe its a Mobile Intel® 4 Series Express Chipset Family

How can i make sure? In the device manager in xp it doesn't show the name of it

 

Search the registry for this:

FeatureTestControl

Back up any key that has it and then zip them up, and attach them to a post.

 

Where would i find that

I see 4 or 5 different folders and within those folders are a variety of thers

i see things like local machine etc.

 

Would it be ''currentcontrolset''?

That is the most accurate folder i could find under hkey_current_config

From the hkey_current_config folder

If i hover down to the ''VIDEO'' one there are 2 more folders 1 with a key ( is this the one?) that has a reg_Sz file ( stating value not set)
And another one that says '' 0000'' The 0000 folder has a reg_sz file and a reg_dword file. The reg_dword file has some value numbers

 

CurrentControlSet is the main directory for the ones I care about.

 

there is 3 of those, and lots of folders within folders

 

Right click on the parent folder for each of the three and choose export.

 

I think this is it?

If not then this is going to take longer than expected

I know i said i saw 3 but for some reason i cannot find the other 2 anymore

Your other post you posted lead me to believe that perhaps you found another ( easier) way to fix this issue without possibly having to reinstall /uniinstall operating systems? I guess it doesn't really matter now though

 

Here is the parent folder

 

I will take a look at them today.

Yeah my other method was to sift through the driver inf.

 

Yeah, these aren't showing anything but paths to keys. Let me get an example of what I am looking for.

 

You can unzip and view this with notepad.

 

One of these has to be it because i basically just followed the the folders paths that were on the notepad text

Edit- It won't let me upload the other one its a little under 3 mb zipped

 

Its not in this one. Basically, I just want the value of FeatureTestControl.

If you want to post it, thats fine, just make sure its not different in any other places.

 

Here is the main root folder of the previous file i posted

https://mega.co.nz/#!mc01ESCS!BNfgHvSOUUrREk_LoJELl1Swh_YE_KV9PpGipXokin4

 

If its not the other one and not this one either then i am going to have a hard time finding it.
I know that you are explaining this and it should be easy to find but i just don't know what to maneveur through the folders to get what you are asking.

I thought the files i posted would be it because you said to just export the ''parent folder'' zip it and upload it

Hk_key_ machine is the parent folder of where the controlset was in like you posted


The one i am posting now is whats inside the 0001 folder

 

Nada. I have searched all these files, and none have entries for FeatureTestControl.

 

If you want to post the dword value here, we can go with that. Just make sure that each instance has the same value.

 

The problem is i can't figure any of this out so we aren't advancing any further.

There is 4 dword values in the 0001 folder

The one from masteronconfig is: 41
Masteronmask is : 80
Slaveonconfigoffset: 43
SlaveonMask: 80

I need to use this laptop starting monday or tuesday i rather not ''give up'', but i haven't even gotten anywhere apparently...

 

I thought you said you found FeatureTestControl in the registry?

Link me the drivers provided by the laptop manufacturer please. I'll see if I can get the info from them.

Then you can go back to Windows 7.

 

I don't believe i ever stated i found ''featuretestcontrol'', i mentioned that that only thing i could find that came close to that was CurrentControlSet so i was posting folders from there.

I basically followed what you posted in that other ''example'' file almost exactly how it had the paths which is why i was mentioning the ''0001'' folder.

If you can tell me where to find it please do so.

This would be alot easier if i was able to copy and paste all the 5 main folders i see in the registry at least then you would be able to see everything i see and could surely find what we are looking for.

I assumed i actually posted 1 or 2 of those though?

About linking to the drivers from the manufacturer i did state in one of my posts the manufacturer ( lenovo) doesn't have them in their website . I talked to them on the phone and they wouldn't assist me getting them or even emaling them to me, instead they transferred me several times until someone said they could '' help'' me but were going to charge $90 for this.. They basically said they were going to mess with my registry for me and said they would guarantee it would fix the problem

About 3 different people from lenovo customer support told me my laptop is discontinued and there will be no support for it and no drivers added to the website.

 

So where is XP getting the drivers from?

Is there a backup in a folder somewhere?

 

This is how the computer installed

I haven't added anything yet other than some unzipping software considering.


This is what i get in the registry folders:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
HKEY_USERS
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG

Where would i go about from here step by step ( ex. go to local machine> then system >then ''xxx'' folder etc) to see featuretestcontrol ?

Because i assumed what you wanted was the ''currentcontrolset'' which was the only thing i said i could find.

 

Choose find under the registry editor under the edit menu.

Then search for it. The registry is too big to be manually looking for things.

 

I think i am going to give up, because we would still need to edit the registry in win 7 after this , which i assume might take as long for me as this is ( and i haven't even gotten what you are asking for...) .

I don't think i want to waste some more of your time going back and forth with 0 results.

I went to reg editor, picked edit and then find. Then i typed Featuretestcontrol , a message pops up seconds later saying '' finished searching through the registry'' which doesn't even do anything in terms of finding what i searched

The manufacturer has no drivers for this in their website, but if they did i think the solution would have been just to uninstall the generic intel drivers i got and put the manufacturer ones. But considering i checked that before i uninstalled ( windows 7) it wasn't possible so this is why i opted for this option.

Even if by some miracle i was able to get the manufacturer drivers wouldn't it cause issues with some newer programs or other settings? Considering that most of lenovos video drivers from older laptops don't seem to be updated for at least 4 years now

 

With Windows xp i couldn't find featuretestcontrol for some reason even when i searched for it manually ( for a while..) or used the easy ''find'' option it came back with nothing.

Windows 7 registry finds it instantly though it has a value of 200
Beside the file it says 0x00000200 (512)

I tried changing the value but it doesn't make a difference

 

Well unfortunately, I am at a loss of how to fix then. My next suggestion would be to try different Intel GPU driver releases and see if one works better than the latest.

 

tried 3 different ones i could find no difference for the fn brightness.

I don't have windows xp installed anymore however i really didn't need to install it as i believe i would have gotten the same result by using a live cd...

This didn't occur to me until after i had already spent time uninstalling etc..

Are you certain there is even a featuretestcontrol file in xp? It doesn't find anything like that it MUST be named something else

 

It is how Intel controls it now on laptops. I figured it would be like that in XP too. Guess I was wrong

 

Can i do anything with the values found linux to windows if i find any?

This is one of those things i wish to solve out of curiosity more than usefulness.

 

They won't exist in GNU/Linux, but they might in Windows 7.

If you check, we can play with them and see if it helps (if they exist).

 

This is one of those issue that i suppose comes with a couple of other laptops that have problems on windows 7-8.

For me it just seems to be this hotkey issue, which is very minor. Laptop runs a lot better on 7 than it did with xp, and considering the holiday sale they had on 7 i couldn't pass up on not upgrading.

You mentioned some posts back that you knew of a sure way to fix this, but if this isn't caused by the intel display driver then that means even if i manage to get the values in xp it won't make a difference?

More than likely it has to be some other driver by the manufacturer controlling this as since their official website has nothing and phone support also comes up with nothing it seems issue is not fixable.

 

Oh its definitely caused by the video drivers.

The brightness controls don't know how to read the GPU due to incorrect settings in the driver.

We will bump this thread a few more times and see if someone who knows of a third party utility that can do this. I don't know of any, as the brightness controls hook into the backlight inverter, where as third party just adjusts color brightness.

 

Or perhaps someone can provide what file to search for in the registry for the values in xp as featuretestcontrol doesn't seem to exist.

Thats all i would need right? To go into xp get the values and then change the ones in featuretestcontrol in 7?

 

It won't be called that, but yes. Do you have a recovery disk or anything with drivers on it?