Want to stop auto dimming

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[Vincenzo]

On a new Lenovo laptop, when operating on battery power, the screen will auto dim itself after about 10 seconds. It does not go fully dark, just to about half brightness. Does not do it on ac power. Then it comes back to normal if I start working again.
But the odd thing is it only seems to happen in File Explorer. It has not happened in Word or any browser.

I’ve looked in power settings, display settings, cannot find it. Also looked in Advanced Power settings to see if it has Adaptive Brightness but that is not even listed.

Any ideas?

Thanks

• This topic was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Vincenzo.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Vincenzo.

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Content adaptive brightness?

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

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Vincenzo

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I think he means dimming the screen while on battery, after inactivity, as a way to save battery.
I don’t think he means auto dimming on changing video content.

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Vincenzo

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Yep, it was a long shot. Content adaptive brightness is about battery saving though, and doesn’t apply to video only. The inactivity thing is odd though.

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Vincenzo

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It has always been there before, but I am on mostly MacOS desktops now and Windows installations are VMs, not laptops.

But see below.

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Battery saver is a different setting.

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Maybe one of the fixes suggested by this web site will help.

6 Simple Ways to Fix Windows 11’s Screen Dimming Issues

If those don’t work, the following Ten Forums web page gives instructions on adding a Dim display settings which allows you to control the diming of the display.

How to Add or Remove “Dim display after” from Power Options in Windows

HTH, Dana:))

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Vincenzo

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I have an old Dell StudioXPS 1340 laptop that I just upgraded from Win7 to Win10.
Here’s where the setting is in that Win10 laptop (maybe the same in Win11?):

Settings\System\Battery

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Vincenzo

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I tried the setting suggested by PKCano, did not help.
I followed all the links suggested above, but still persists in happening.

The screen changes brightness, going dim a bit, then coming back up, on its own but it happens when I perform an action like deleting or moving a file. But it is not repeatable, I can do the same action again and it may not dim the next time.

From reading some of the links above, this seems like the adaptive brightness feature, but when I look in Advanced Power Setting/Display, the Enable Adaptive Brightness setting is not shown there.

When I just opened Control Panel, the screen dimmed for about a second and then came back up. Repeat that action and it does not happen.

When I click Start, it dims and stays dimmed until I move the mouse. But repeat that action, nada.

This only happens when I am on battery power, but it is not related to low battery, since it happens at all battery levels, even 90% charge

 

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I’ve also tried updating the Display Driver but it says I am up to date.

In that dialog it offers to check Win Updates for other drivers. I found 4 called Lenovo System update, did all 4 but no help.

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Perhaps it’s a Lenovo thing rather than Windows. What model is it?

There’s a recent critical update for Thinkpads:

Lenovo Power and Battery Driver for Windows 11 (Version 21H2 or later), 10 (Version 1703 or Later) – ThinkPad

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I just did a bunch of typing in Word. As I type the brightness varies up and down. When I stop typing, it stays at the highest brightness level. Weird and distracting.

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b wrote:

Perhaps it’s a Lenovo thing rather than Windows. What model is it?

There’s a recent critical update for Thinkpads:

Lenovo Power and Battery Driver for Windows 11 (Version 21H2 or later), 10 (Version 1703 or Later) – ThinkPad

It is a Lenovo Yoga 7i

Thanks

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Vincenzo wrote:

It is a Lenovo Yoga 7i

Thanks

Could be Intel Display Power Saving Technology, which can be disabled:

Laptop Display Automatically Changing Brightness of Screen
[Intel Troubleshooting: Last Reviewed: 01/24/2023]

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I’m not sure if my dimming problem on the Lenovo Yoga 7i was the same as yours, but it quit for me when I went to settings > display and unchecked “Help improve battery by optimizing the content shown and brightness.” in the drop down menu under Brightness.

Where am I? What am I doing in this hand basket?

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Vincenzo, b

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Thanks for confirming. That’s the Content adaptive brightness control in Windows I referred to and linked to Microsoft help about in the first reply.

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Vincenzo wrote:

But the odd thing is it only seems to happen in File Explorer. It has not happened in Word or any browser.

Vincenzo wrote:

The screen changes brightness, going dim a bit, then coming back up, on its own but it happens when I perform an action like deleting or moving a file. But it is not repeatable,

Vincenzo wrote:

I just did a bunch of typing in Word. As I type the brightness varies up and down. When I stop typing, it stays at the highest brightness level.

This is starting to sound like a hardware problem. Is it still under warranty?

Win 11 home - 24H2
Attitude is a choice...Choose wisely

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Another intermittent Lenovo problem. The keyboard backlight on mine goes dark after a few seconds and stays that way until a key is pushed. The purpose of keyboard backlighting is to illuminate the keys. Why would Lenovo make a feature to automatically turn it off in the dark?

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I think the backlight has a timeout on most laptop keyboards. My Surface does too. I press the bottom left Ctrl key to get it back.

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… although some have a configurable BIOS setting for backlit keyboard timeout (which can even be set to Never):

How to configure Keyboard Backlit Timeout settings for your Windows PC

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I have a similar problem and it has been driving me crazy. Thanks for the connection to being on battery! I’m on battery most of the time and I hadn’t realized that that was a factor.

I bought a new laptop (HP Envy) in May with Windows 11 Home installed. I installed Windows 10 Home over that. Adaptive brightness isn’t supported, but I disabled the Night Light feature and Battery Saver.

I find that launching a program that causes Windows to warn me that the app may make changes to my device and loading certain websites in Firefox are pretty likely to cause the display to dim. It also dims at other less predictable times. Then it remains that way for a few seconds and gradually increases in brightness again.

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Just wanted to update that I also solved my screen dimming issue. After a lot of googling, I was pointed to the Intel Graphics Command Center app. I downloaded it from the Microsoft store and disabled the Display Power Saving setting in System -> Power. Problem solved.

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b

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Did you try switching to a different power profile?

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Tiny wrote:

I’m not sure if my dimming problem on the Lenovo Yoga 7i was the same as yours, but it quit for me when I went to settings > display and unchecked “Help improve battery by optimizing the content shown and brightness.” in the drop down menu under Brightness.

This fixed it for me!!

Thanks so much, Tiny.

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b wrote:

Content adaptive brightness?

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

b,

I see now you recommended this setting earlier but somehow I missed it.

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b

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On Lenovo Yoga 7 laptops the problem is caused by a very poorly implemented presence sensor. Simply go to Setting, type presence in the search box and uncheck “Dim my PC when I look away”. In fact, on the top of the page also just turn it off.  It is a train wreck of bugs.

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I forgot to add that once you are in the presence selector settings you need to click “System wide presence selector settings”. At my company we have had to change our base images to get rid of this problem on corporate laptops. Lenovo does know about this problem but they won’t acknowledge it or tell their support staff how to advise customers. They have known about it for months but they won’t admit they didn’t test the feature befor releasing the series of laptops. On the copilot series it is incredibly annoying because in pursuit of battery life they have made the timeout very short even on mains power. They have also hidden the setting away from the display settings which makes no sense at all. Trust me, the change I have shown does fix the problem on the Lenovo Yoga 7 range.

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