Dim backlight in XP on Gateway laptop

[Calab]

I've got a new Gateway T-6815 laptop. This machine comes from Gateway with
Vista pre-installed. The first thing I want to do is wipe Vista and install
XP Pro SP2.

I've got XP installed and mostly working... Still need to find audio
drivers.

My problem is the display. I've got the latest video drivers from Intel -
965 chipset - and they installed fine. Unfortunately, these drivers turn the
backlight WAY down and I can't find any way to correct this.

I know the backlight is working because the display is great when in the
BIOS.

Anyone have any ideas how to correct this?

 

[AdenOne]

I've got a new Gateway T-6815 laptop. This machine comes from Gateway with
Vista pre-installed. The first thing I want to do is wipe Vista and install
XP Pro SP2.

I've got XP installed and mostly working... Still need to find audio
drivers.

My problem is the display. I've got the latest video drivers from Intel -
965 chipset - and they installed fine. Unfortunately, these drivers turn the
backlight WAY down and I can't find any way to correct this.

I know the backlight is working because the display is great when in the
BIOS.

Anyone have any ideas how to correct this?

Interesting. Could it be due to XP's bad battery management? Vista
increased my battery life by about 45 minutes or so on my laptop.
Maybe the power management is throttling back the LCD due to low
battery? Does it still do it on AC mains?

 

[Calab]

My problem is the display. I've got the latest video drivers from Intel -

Interesting. Could it be due to XP's bad battery management? Vista
increased my battery life by about 45 minutes or so on my laptop.
Maybe the power management is throttling back the LCD due to low
battery? Does it still do it on AC mains?

Doesn't matter if it's on battery or AC. Tried adjusting power modes in the
Intel settings and Windows power management with no luck.

: (

 

[AdenOne]

Doesn't matter if it's on battery or AC. Tried adjusting power modes in the
Intel settings and Windows power management with no luck.

: (

Strange - one would think the latest drivers would be the same whether
using XP or Vista. Did you back up the original drivers and so on that
came with the laptop, or do you have them on a CD or something?
Perhaps there is some utility program that is intended to be installed
to manage backlight settings or something? I don;t think the backlight
is part of the display driver system.

Could it be an issue with the display driver, though, like a gamma
correction error or a brightness\contrast setting thats wrong?

 

[CBFalconer]

I've got a new Gateway T-6815 laptop. This machine comes from
Gateway with Vista pre-installed. The first thing I want to do is
wipe Vista and install XP Pro SP2.

I've got XP installed and mostly working... Still need to find
audio drivers.

My problem is the display. I've got the latest video drivers from
Intel - 965 chipset - and they installed fine. Unfortunately,
these drivers turn the backlight WAY down and I can't find any
way to correct this.

I know the backlight is working because the display is great when
in the BIOS.

Anyone have any ideas how to correct this?

Look into the bios settings. There are likely to be two levels
settable, one for battery power, and one for AC power.

Also consider installing Linux. I suggest Ubuntu. You can get the
whole schmeer free as a CD from shipit.ubuntu.com.

 

[Paul]

Doesn't matter if it's on battery or AC. Tried adjusting power modes in the
Intel settings and Windows power management with no luck.

: (

I don't have a laptop here, so cannot look for Device Manager entries
and the like.

For some hardware, the BIOS knows the specifics of what is underneath.
The BIOS may pass certain information, in the ACPI tables. For
example, if I use Everest, and look in Physical Devices, I may see
PNP0xxx (plug and play) devices with "ACPI" in the name. It could be
that the backlight setting is passed as one of these.

It may not necessarily be covered by a chipset driver.

Ideally, it should be managed under the ACPI system, because
then, when you switch between AC and battery, a whole bunch of
policies can be set in one shot. It doesn't make sense to have
a bunch of non-uniform, separate drivers, for every bit of
custom hardware they happened to add.

Perhaps if you review what ACPI or PNP stuff is visible in
Vista, then you'll have a better idea what to look for in
WinXP.

Paul

 

[kony]

Strange - one would think the latest drivers would be the same whether
using XP or Vista. Did you back up the original drivers and so on that
came with the laptop, or do you have them on a CD or something?
Perhaps there is some utility program that is intended to be installed
to manage backlight settings or something?

There should be a utility to adjust the power managed
features such as clockspeed, display brightness, turning off
unused functions based on profiles that correspond to
user-set scenarios or whether running off battery or AC
power. These settings might also be in the bios to a more
limited extent.

The OP should seek this power management utility from
Gateway or install it if already in possession of it. The
same util that works on vista may work on XP.

I don;t think the backlight
is part of the display driver system.

Correct, the backlight is not part of the display driver,
but display drivers do often have brightness settings so it
is possible that is an issue but the power management util
should be tried first.

Could it be an issue with the display driver, though, like a gamma
correction error or a brightness\contrast setting thats wrong?

Possible, looking in Display Properties would be one thing
to do but I would expect the defaults for these were a
middling correct value and it's more likely the power
managed settings causing lower brightness.

 

[JFG]

I've got a new Gateway T-6815 laptop. This machine comes from Gateway with
Vista pre-installed. The first thing I want to do is wipe Vista and
install XP Pro SP2.

I've got XP installed and mostly working... Still need to find audio
drivers.

My problem is the display. I've got the latest video drivers from Intel -
965 chipset - and they installed fine. Unfortunately, these drivers turn
the backlight WAY down and I can't find any way to correct this.

I know the backlight is working because the display is great when in the
BIOS.

Anyone have any ideas how to correct this?

This might help. Look for fn key, then there should be a key elsewhere with
either a sun or other brightness up and down indicator on it. Depress fn
and brightness up if you have that option. Could do it if somehow the
brightness level has been turned down. JG

 

[Plato]

I've got a new Gateway T-6815 laptop. This machine comes from Gateway with
Vista pre-installed. The first thing I want to do is wipe Vista and install
XP Pro SP2.

Laptops are designed to work with the OS they came with.

 

[CBFalconer]

Laptops are designed to work with the OS they came with.

Don't repeat this particular idiocy.

 

[kony]

Don't repeat this particular idiocy.

I don't know about "designed" per se but there are easily
cases where one has paid a significant portion of the cost
of the laptop for the included software, and a portion of
the cost for features that may not be supported in an
alternate OS due to lack of drivers or proper GUI support to
configure settings.

Since Vista is still fairly new, most if not all the
hardware was developed during the XP era, there is a good
chance of finding drivers and software supportive of XP,
though I would have to assume the OP accepts abandoning much
of the OEM support for the laptop since they'll likely
refuse to do much if anything when there is a problem
running a different OS than the factory installed one.
While that may not be a problem for common software issues
where the world at large can provide as much assistance as
the OEM could, it could still be an issue if the hardware
itself has a problem, whether the issue be determining it is
actually the hardware or getting the OEM to accept that the
the hardware is actually the problem instead of using the
fact that a different OS is installed as a convenient
excuse.

Having written this much, if it were my laptop I too would
want to switch to XP, maybe even Win2k depending on the
situation, but I would first make a full backup of the
original OS and partitioning so if it came to a point where
the laptop had to be restored to original factory config (if
the OEM didn't provide restoration discs) then that was
possible.

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

Having written this much, if it were my laptop I too would want
to switch to XP, maybe even Win2k depending on the situation, but
I would first make a full backup of the original OS and
partitioning so if it came to a point where the laptop had to be
restored to original factory config (if the OEM didn't provide
restoration discs) then that was possible.

Or Linux, with a slight concession to the rare application not
already ported there (or with an alternative available). However I
agree with the sentiment and action.

 

[lbarreca]

I've got a new Gateway T-6815 laptop. This machine comes from Gateway with
Vista pre-installed. The first thing I want to do is wipe Vista and install
XP Pro SP2.

I've got XP installed and mostly working... Still need to find audio
drivers.

My problem is the display. I've got the latest video drivers from Intel -
965 chipset - and they installed fine. Unfortunately, these drivers turn the
backlight WAY down and I can't find any way to correct this.

I know the backlight is working because the display is great when in the
BIOS.

Anyone have any ideas how to correct this?

I am having the same problem on the same laptop but I am clearly not
as tech savvy. Did you figure it out? I thought it was the Vista but
now I am not so sure. Any help is appreciated before I take it for
repair.