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Screen brightness affected by... electricity?

K

kagoatweed

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 20, 2008
9
0
This isn't really a problem, just an observation that I wanted some opinions on.

I have the aluminum MacBook (<3) and it is often found on my desk, in front of my aluminum desk lamp. I was writing a paper and had one hand on my touchpad and touched my (off, but plugged in) light with my other hand. My screen dimmed just a little bit, approx the brightness between the two highest lighting levels.
Even when not touching my touchpad, just touching my light, my screen did the same thing. Depending on WHERE on the lamp I touch, it affects the brightness... but only on the bell surrounding the light bulb, no other components of the light.

Any ideas what causes this? :p
 
kagoatweed said:
This isn't really a problem, just an observation that I wanted some opinions on.

I have the aluminum MacBook (<3) and it is often found on my desk, in front of my aluminum desk lamp. I was writing a paper and had one hand on my touchpad and touched my (off, but plugged in) light with my other hand. My screen dimmed just a little bit, approx the brightness between the two highest lighting levels.
Even when not touching my touchpad, just touching my light, my screen did the same thing. Depending on WHERE on the lamp I touch, it affects the brightness... but only on the bell surrounding the light bulb, no other components of the light.

Any ideas what causes this? :p
Click to expand...

The lamp may not be completely grounded properly. When you touch it it closes the circuit. If your MB is plugged into the same outlet could be affecting the power. I wouldn't worry to much about it, if you are concerned try plugging the lamp into another plug, but you may end up getting the same result if that other plug is daisy chained off of the original outlet. Standard practice in homes. Just my thoughts...
 
Yeah, the ambient light sensor in the Macbook sees the change of light when you touch the lamp in various spots altering the path of light when it bounces off your arm and hand and makes the screen adjust accordingly. Not rocket science. haha. That ambient sensor can pick up some very subtle lighting changes.

It has nothing to do with electricity. Well, in a way it does because both things are running on electricity. Haha. But, the actual phenomenon happenings is just the sensor doing it's job. If you don't like it, then disable the brightness autoadjust feature in your system prefs.

Hope this helps.
 
The light sensor is pretty sensitive.

I had to shut mine off, just because at night, when using my MB on the couch while watching TV, it'd fluctuate the screen brightness based off how bright the TV image bouncing off the wall behind me was.

It got really annoying, really fast =\
 
:O very cool! didn't even know i had one of those. it all makes sense now! :cool:

thanks!
 
This reminds me of my Dell Latitude. IT had a magnesium alloy lower case, and the paint wore off around a corner on it. if one arm was touching that corner, and i touched my desk lamp, i could feel my arm tingle on the dell. i even used my tongue to verify the elevrical connection.

Don't judge me...
 
STSNorthstar said:
This reminds me of my Dell Latitude. IT had a magnesium alloy lower case, and the paint wore off around a corner on it. if one arm was touching that corner, and i touched my desk lamp, i could feel my arm tingle on the dell. i even used my tongue to verify the elevrical connection.

Don't judge me...
Click to expand...

Here, can you check this 9V battery for me? :D
 
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