Windows 8 Brightness (too bright, controls don't work)

jrabbit · Apr 8, 2013

I have a late 2011 15" MBP running Windows 8 with Boot Camp 5. Everything is up to date (I tried using the default Boot Camp drivers as well as the latest AMD Catalyst Mobility drivers--same behavior). The graphics card is the Radeon HD6770M.

The problem is that the screen is at maximum brightness, and nothing will change that. The brightness keys act as though they might work (the meter bars move); the adaptive brightness is turned off.

Manually changing the brightness in the Windows Charms has no effect; neither does the Windows Display settings.

Any ideas?

Johbremat · Apr 26, 2013

Pop in to the Boot Camp control panel and have a peek at the 'Brightness' tab. Hopefully moving the slider will assist.

jrabbit · Apr 27, 2013

I have exactly the same problem, and posted here a while ago--so far as I know there is no known solution.

Your are correct; the buttons appear to work (the on-screen meters do change), but there is no effect on the actual brightness. Fussing with Windows control panel items or display settings has absolutely no impact (including disabling automatic brightness adjustment).

From searching around, this seems to be a driver issue with either NVIDIA or ATI; there is chatter on their forums about this, but no fixes at this time.

I keep lurking in this forum hoping someone will find or notice a fix...

iPawl · Apr 30, 2013

Hi jrabbit,

I've had a similar problem when I installed the latest Catalyst and Drivers (13.4) on my 2011 MBP.

I thought I'd get by the drivers but I ran into some problems with the games, and ended up restoring to the fresh install point, using Bootcamp drivers (they're not that old).

The brightness toggles however do work with the bootcamp drivers, only after disabling adaptive power.

Phayz · May 1, 2013

I think it also has to do with Apple's Monitor display drivers. Try to disable that and it'll pick up another driver and install the latest graphics card drivers and see if that helps.

amk29j · Jun 16, 2013

I've been searching for a fix for this problem for ages and I figured out a fix that works for me and maybe it'll work for you.

1. Open Device Manager (Right click in the bottom right corner of the screen, click Device Manager)
2. Expand the Monitors
3. Right click on "Generic PnP Monitor" and choose Disable
4. Reboot

I have an early 2011 MBP with a Radeon 6750M and Windows 8 Pro installed with Bootcamp 5 and Catalyst drivers for reference.

jrabbit · Jun 16, 2013

amk,

Just for clarification, which Catalyst drivers are you using, the latest or the ones that came with Boot Camp?

Curious if that also makes a difference or not; whichever you have, I will try...

bb426 · Sep 7, 2013

amk29j said:
I've been searching for a fix for this problem for ages and I figured out a fix that works for me and maybe it'll work for you.

1. Open Device Manager (Right click in the bottom right corner of the screen, click Device Manager)
2. Expand the Monitors
3. Right click on "Generic PnP Monitor" and choose Disable
4. Reboot

I have an early 2011 MBP with a Radeon 6750M and Windows 8 Pro installed with Bootcamp 5 and Catalyst drivers for reference.

I am VERY SURPRISED this hasn't been noticed or at least upvoted more. Maybe it's just me. I have been having this problem for the past 2 months and have not been able to find a solution to my brightness problem until now. And I have been searching endlessly almost every day because of how much it annoyed me.

So far up until now, the only solution I have found to this problem was to keep the old, default outdated AMD Bootcamp-installed graphics driver. That was the only way I could adjust the brightness, and it presented various other problems especially in Windows 8.1 (Metro apps constantly crashing and unable to open, most notably XBox Music). Now I can finally update the AMD drivers and be able to adjust the brightness and live in peace.

I hope others who are having this same problem will find your solution. By the way, I am running Windows 8.1 RTM with a 2011 Macbook Pro with ATI Radeon HD 6490M graphics. Thanks for sharing the info!

P.S., to whoever mentioned the "Brightness" Control in Bootcamp Control Panel, this was NOT present until I disabled that monitor. So whatever the hell that Generic PNP Monitor was, it seems to be nothing but a bad seed.

TPadden · Sep 7, 2013

In the control panel power options, advanced settings, try disabling the adaptive brightness; works for the 2013 MBA.

Nevermind ..... saw already done!

sky1193 · Nov 5, 2013

Just wondering if anyone else has found a solution to this as I just put my ODD back in my Early 2011 MBP and installed W8 on my main SSD via bootcamp and am experiencing this problem. Updated to 8.1 and still have the same problem. Tried installing the bootcamp drivers again and even spent an hour chatting with a few apple techs and they couldn't figure it out either. If I disable the Generic PnP and reboot I still have the max brightness issue and no longer have the option to even try to adjust it. Seems like it might be a driver issue is what the Apple tech came to but still was pretty much clueless about it as it worked fine on his exact same model MBP as mine.

jrabbit · Nov 6, 2013

As with sky, I still have the same issue on my 2011 MBP (Radeon graphics) with Windows 8.1 installed via Boot Camp.

The only thing that works is to install the Catalyst drivers and control center, then one can adjust the brightness via Catalyst. Neither the function keys nor the Windows brightness controls do anything for my machine (including tweaks to the Generic PnP device and adaptive brightness).

I wonder if this an ATI-related issue that will never be resolved, since Apple has moved on to Nvidia...

sconstantine · Nov 8, 2013

Brightness, Bootcamp, Function Key and OSD

This thread has 2 simultaneous but different topics happening, one for Adaptive brightness settings in the Windows power controls, and the manual brightness adjustment with a MacBook (and possibly others) laptop function keys; my reply is in regards to the latter.

Updating to Windows 8.1 seems to have brought this problem back up for me. The function key brightness is now controlled by Windows rather than the Bootcamp Keyboard OSD manager. Strange as the backlit keyboard and volume function keys show the on-screen display and work fine, but the brightness is the default windows OSD slider and does not change.

As amk29j and bb426 confirm, the issue is resolved by disabling the 'Generic PNP Monitor'; upon rebooting, the "Brightness" FN-Control is now functioning back on the OSD and the Bootcamp Control Panel has a tab for it.

Many thanks to this thread, my hair can begin to regrow.

radiohead14 · Nov 10, 2013

amk29j said:
I've been searching for a fix for this problem for ages and I figured out a fix that works for me and maybe it'll work for you.

1. Open Device Manager (Right click in the bottom right corner of the screen, click Device Manager)
2. Expand the Monitors
3. Right click on "Generic PnP Monitor" and choose Disable
4. Reboot

I have an early 2011 MBP with a Radeon 6750M and Windows 8 Pro installed with Bootcamp 5 and Catalyst drivers for reference.

bb426 said:
I am VERY SURPRISED this hasn't been noticed or at least upvoted more. Maybe it's just me. I have been having this problem for the past 2 months and have not been able to find a solution to my brightness problem until now. And I have been searching endlessly almost every day because of how much it annoyed me.

So far up until now, the only solution I have found to this problem was to keep the old, default outdated AMD Bootcamp-installed graphics driver. That was the only way I could adjust the brightness, and it presented various other problems especially in Windows 8.1 (Metro apps constantly crashing and unable to open, most notably XBox Music). Now I can finally update the AMD drivers and be able to adjust the brightness and live in peace.

I hope others who are having this same problem will find your solution. By the way, I am running Windows 8.1 RTM with a 2011 Macbook Pro with ATI Radeon HD 6490M graphics. Thanks for sharing the info!

P.S., to whoever mentioned the "Brightness" Control in Bootcamp Control Panel, this was NOT present until I disabled that monitor. So whatever the hell that Generic PNP Monitor was, it seems to be nothing but a bad seed.

sconstantine said:
This thread has 2 simultaneous but different topics happening, one for Adaptive brightness settings in the Windows power controls, and the manual brightness adjustment with a MacBook (and possibly others) laptop function keys; my reply is in regards to the latter.

Updating to Windows 8.1 seems to have brought this problem back up for me. The function key brightness is now controlled by Windows rather than the Bootcamp Keyboard OSD manager. Strange as the backlit keyboard and volume function keys show the on-screen display and work fine, but the brightness is the default windows OSD slider and does not change.

As amk29j and bb426 confirm, the issue is resolved by disabling the 'Generic PNP Monitor'; upon rebooting, the "Brightness" FN-Control is now functioning back on the OSD and the Bootcamp Control Panel has a tab for it.

Many thanks to this thread, my hair can begin to regrow.

it seems this fix only works if you have a dedicated gpu? i tried this with my 13" rMBP with iris and disabling generic pnp only made my brightness fn keys not work at all.

the only temporary fix i found was to close your lid for a sec, and as soon as you open it back up to log on again.. the brightness levels should work fine again.

ninja2000 · Nov 10, 2013

radiohead14 said:
it seems this fix only works if you have a dedicated gpu? i tried this with my 13" rMBP with iris and disabling generic pnp only made my brightness fn keys not work at all.

the only temporary fix i found was to close your lid for a sec, and as soon as you open it back up to log on again.. the brightness levels should work fine again.

I noticed the same

hoping this may get fixed in the future as the stock bootcamp intel drivers are quite old and apple will never update them

freeuser · Nov 11, 2013

did you try this

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6041-screen-brightness-adjust-windows-8-a.html

worked for me ;-)

HackDaBox · Nov 26, 2013

THANKYOU SO MUCH ! This works 100% in my iMac 2012 20.5" !!!

amk29j said:
I've been searching for a fix for this problem for ages and I figured out a fix that works for me and maybe it'll work for you.

1. Open Device Manager (Right click in the bottom right corner of the screen, click Device Manager)
2. Expand the Monitors
3. Right click on "Generic PnP Monitor" and choose Disable
4. Reboot

I have an early 2011 MBP with a Radeon 6750M and Windows 8 Pro installed with Bootcamp 5 and Catalyst drivers for reference.

Debeukd · Dec 15, 2013

Worked for me too !

Disabled 2 "Generic PnP Monitor" drivers (2 were listed in Device manager/Monitors)

Restarted and adjusted brightness in Boot Camp Control Panel afterwards.

__________________
:apple:

kondrat · Jan 25, 2014

radiohead14 said:
it seems this fix only works if you have a dedicated gpu? i tried this with my 13" rMBP with iris and disabling generic pnp only made my brightness fn keys not work at all.

the only temporary fix i found was to close your lid for a sec, and as soon as you open it back up to log on again.. the brightness levels should work fine again.

@radiohead14, ive the same mac, have you solved this problem?

radiohead14 · Jan 30, 2014

kondrat said:
@radiohead14, ive the same mac, have you solved this problem?

sorry, no i have not. it is likely that only if apple ever updates their bootcamp drivers to have better windows/retina support that this will get resolved. unfortunately, apple hasn't updated it since march of last year.

Mynth · Feb 13, 2014

I've found out how to turn the dimming off!

Hi, i dont know if you guys haven't still found out but i just found it out after 20 minutes of searching in the settings, well all you got to do is search on your computer "Brightness" and there will be something called auto brightness and all you got to do it just switch it from on to off and everything should work perfectly! i hope i helped you guys out!http://cdn.macrumors.com/vb/images/smilies/smile.gif

superkrups20056 · Oct 3, 2015

amk29j said:
I've been searching for a fix for this problem for ages and I figured out a fix that works for me and maybe it'll work for you.

1. Open Device Manager (Right click in the bottom right corner of the screen, click Device Manager)
2. Expand the Monitors
3. Right click on "Generic PnP Monitor" and choose Disable
4. Reboot

I have an early 2011 MBP with a Radeon 6750M and Windows 8 Pro installed with Bootcamp 5 and Catalyst drivers for reference.

When I reboot Windows 10, the Generic PnP monitor driver reenables itself

Without turning off automatic driver checking in Windows 10, is there any way to keep the Generic PnP monitor disabled on reboot?

superkrups20056 · Oct 3, 2015

superkrups20056 said:
When I reboot Windows 10, the Generic PnP monitor driver reenables itself Without turning off automatic driver checking in Windows 10, is there any way to keep the Generic PnP monitor disabled on reboot?

Figured it out. Used group policy editor to prevent device from being installed via device ID.

choobe · Nov 26, 2016

amk29j said:
I've been searching for a fix for this problem for ages and I figured out a fix that works for me and maybe it'll work for you.

1. Open Device Manager (Right click in the bottom right corner of the screen, click Device Manager)
2. Expand the Monitors
3. Right click on "Generic PnP Monitor" and choose Disable
4. Reboot

I have an early 2011 MBP with a Radeon 6750M and Windows 8 Pro installed with Bootcamp 5 and Catalyst drivers for reference.

This worked for me. I thought I would just have to live with not being able to adjust the brightness, thank goodness it is fixed now! Thanks!

OneTime1 · Jan 28, 2018

On Windows 8.1 I have found the best thing to do other than closing the lid which activates the mechanism - but is apparently bad for the computer - is to use a screen saver which can be set to initialise after 1 minute of inactivity and mimics the blacked out screen.

Only thing is that the apple cutout on the lid remains illuminated.

If you have control panel pinned to your taskbar you can pin the screen saver shortcut as I have demonstrated to make it even less time consuming toggling on the setting to black out your screen.

Windows 8 Brightness (too bright, controls don't work)

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