M6400 Very dim display when Windows 7 x64 video driver installed

M6400, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit RTM, FX3700M, E2E RGB LED

Everything appears to be working fine in my win 7 installation with the exception of the video. If I install any video driver then the LCD display dim's down to <50% of its normal brightness compared to just vanilla VGA drivers. External monitor works fine.

I initially went with the official NVIDIA 186.03 driver, and this exhibited the dimming effect. I have since tried all manner of other video driver versions including laptop2go, etc and none of them work. Even had my first win7 BSOD when I installed Dell's latest Vista x64 driver...

I have enabled and disabled the automatic brightness sensor, I have configured the power management to never dim the display, etc. Nothing seems to work. I would call it a hardware issue for sure apart from the VGA drivers providing full brightness...

I see that at least one other member (Airblazer) of the forum seems to have this combo of h/w and s/w working so I am at a loss as to why I can't get it to work. Nvidia driver reports my laptop lcd as a sanyo, device manager reports monitor as a plug and play display. Do other people have alternative reports of these perhaps?

My nearest brick wall is getting quite bloody at head height... Anyone else seen this issue? Any suggestions?

Thx, Paul.

 

i thought dell already had drivers and software for win7 out?

 

Very odd - My M4400 had none of these issues on W7
It's not a case of you needing to up it via the FN and up arrow is it?

Also is control point installed?

 

They have some drivers, but specifically they do not have a driver for video.

I have tried to avoid dell s/w bloat and controlpoint in particular, but did install the control point driver pack as this provides the fingerprint driver.

Overall Win7 has drivers for pretty much all of the onboard devices - with the above exceptions.

Cheers, Paul.

 

Yes I have tried using the keys and I can dimm the display further, but they still cannot get it brighter than around 50%.

I installed the controlpoint drivers, but not the rest of the software - I thought this was comms and security only related - and I prefer using the std OS support for these features where possible. Have you found this necessary software for other features?

Cheers, Paul.

 

Yay! Fixed it!

I found a Dell driver for the ambient light sensor for Vista x64 and installed that. When I rebooted Win 7 automatically installed the 179.76 video drivers that had previously caused a BSOD - worked fine this time - and the display is still bright (Given the version number these video drivers must have come from the Dell Vista x64 video driver that I tried earlier)

I then over-extended myself and installed the lastest 186.03 from nvidia - too bad the display is dim again

Rolled back to the previous driver and I am happy again. It would be good to be able to use the latest driver, but at least I can work with this one. Probably have to wait for an official dell release.

I wonder if other people who got this working upgraded a vista installation or installed from scratch like I did?

Maybe there are different versions of the E2E RGB LCD?

Cheers!
Paul.

 

update: machine BSOD's if external displayport display is used. If I use VGA output however then all is well.

 

I had the same issue with 185.81, 185.85, and 186.03 WHQL. 186.08 was ok, but was unsigned and thus a deal-breaker for Blu-ray playback. 182.67 (Vista x64) is both signed and RGBLED-friendly - works on Win 7 and is available at laptopvideo2go.com

 

Dell released Nvidia Driver for Windows 7
Take a look at Dells Driver Page for an Update

regards
Christopher

 

Thanks Christopher and Colsaunders - Dell driver fresh today - lets give it a twirl!

Paul.