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I have a windows 8 laptop. My desktop background is very dark (almost black) and when i have no windows open, my brightness dims. When i open an application that is primarily white (google chrome's start page) or just a white image, the screen brightens. It seems to be caused by the color of the screen. If i open http://www.fanhow.com/images/1/10/Green_Storm_Fill_Black_Color.jpg and zoom in and out, when the black image is small, the screen brightens, when it gets bigger, the screen darkens.

I have most likely ruled out "Adaptive Brightness" because I do not have an ambient light sensor.

Is this a feature?

LSerni
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agz
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11 Answers11

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Short answer: It is a feature.

This is the effect of either Intel's "Display Power Saving Technology" or AMD's "Vari-Bright" feature, the intent is to reduce power usage by reducing brightness when you look at dark images (which ostensibly would not need to be back lit so much). This technology detects whether the screen is displaying a mostly dark or mostly light image, and adjusts the back light accordingly. Unfortunately this can be annoying if important parts of the UI are light colors (like Chrome), or when dealing with highly visual applications (Photoshop, Media, etc) where changes to brightness have a negative effect on visual fidelity.

So yes, this is a feature, unfortunately this means either dealing with the effect, or forfeiting the power savings it produces.

If you dislike this feature, it can be disabled (or adjusted) it in the settings for your graphics card.

Intel:

The exact layout of Intel's options may vary from system to system, but on my machine:

Intel system tray icon > Graphics Properties > Power > On Battery > Display Power Saving Technology

It shouldn't be too hard to find, even if it isn't in the same place on your machine. You may need to look for the properties in control panel.

AMD:

Open the Catalyst Control Center (search for "CCC" in start, choose CCC - Advanced) > Graphics > Power Play > Enable Vari-Bright [Check-box] [Source]

jbzdarkid
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zeel
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15

The answer is correct but unfortunately unhelpful for when your laptop is plugged in, as Intel doesn't allow you to change the setting for AC power. Here's something else to try.

The registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000 should have a value named DCUserPreferencePolicy.
Contrary to its name, it seems to affect the AC behavior as well.
I think the top half of the number is for AC power. So you might have something like 0x00220020. The bottom 0 means this feature is disabled for DC power, so I think changing the upper half to mirror the lower half (that is, to 0x00200020) should fix it. In my case, I just set the whole thing to 0 because I didn't particularly care what it was. You can try that or something else.

user541686
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10

The provided solution addresses the issue but my computer did not have the intel system tray icon, but I found I could also access the configuration by right clicking on the desktop and choosing:

Intel® Graphics Settings →
 Graphics Properties →
  Power →
   On Battery →
    Display Power Saving Technology
trex005
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My laptop does exactly the same thing. It's a display panel "feature" (not Windows 8 fault), Dynamic contrast . Maybe a badly implemented one.

NothingsImpossible
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2

Sometimes it is the Monitor's settings (the physical menu button on monitor) go into color and change DCR mode to off

thedrs
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2

To solve this issue: I disabled Display Power Saving Technology, located in Intel HD Graphics Control Panel, Power, On Battery. At first the problem persisted, but after unplugging AC power from my laptop and reconnecting it, the problem was solved. There's no option to disable this "feature" for AC power, and I was unable to find anything in the registry. So, disabling the setting for battery power is the solution, it just requires the laptop to be cycled from AC-DC-AC. My eyes are grateful :) Hope this helps

George
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I didn't try the registry key thing, but I tried everything else mentioned here and elsewhere (Control Panel/Change Advanced Power Settings/Display/Adaptive brightness -Dimmed brightness, Intel icon etc..) Nothing worked. Than I unplugged the laptop and when Windows asked me to switch to power saving, I've hit NO. Then I plugged it again and it's back to normal. My display brightness was varying with the image( darker image-dimmed brightness) and it happened after I used the laptop unplugged and Windows changed to power saving.

Visitor Q
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I had a similar issue, which was caused by Dell's ecopower "feature" (I have a Dell Inspiron). It causes the brightness to automatically change depending on what is currently onscreen, and is only activated when on battery (and not on sector). It's super annoying since scrolling affects the brighness.

The fix is in the BIOS, in the Video section, unclick "ecopower".

Mariuslp
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0

I know I am late for this thread, but this issue was very frustrating to me, so here is how I finally solved it, hopefully it would help someone having the same problem:

My Samsung monitor has a setting Samsung MAGIC Bright, I turned it off and the problem was fixed.

TruthSeeker
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For WINDOWS 11. And if its not related to Intel or AMD graphics settings, this will help.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/content-adaptive-brightness-control-in-windows-292d1f7f-9e02-4b37-a9c8-dab3e1727e78

screenshot of settings app in Windows 11

Fahad Sumar
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-1

If nothing helps anymore, u can try this: After all changes in your configuration have been tried, do the following: Start your laptop on battery current, then when the OS is showing it's desktop, switch to the AC current. Your laptop senses that you switched between the battery and AC and will not adapt your screen anymore, not even a dark screen getting darker. Mind you, you have to do this every time you start up, even when your laptop was in suspended or sleep mode. It helps me a lot.

EDJO
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