M1330 Brightness - Power vs Battery

I searched and was supprised no one mentioned how the brightness max on power vs brightness max on battery were different. I turned off all the power settings I could find and it still changes brightness when I unplug the laptop.

How do you change this "feature"?

 

this happens with all laptops I've ever seen mate! But I dunno if the M1330 is worse than others for this?

 

Mine stays the same all the time. Unless I set it differently to save power.

 

It is a feature to save your battery! If the notebook were to be as bright as it is on AC Power, the battery would run out in no time!

 

It should stay the same unless you choose different settings.

My settings at HIGH at times, Everything maxed out.

 

He is asking if your brightness changes if you yank out the power cord even though you have set it to maximum brightness in both power and battery mode.

 

So does the backlight dim if you yank the power cord?

 

Are you using CCFL Backlight LCD?

 

For the second time, it stays the same.

 

I am really confused. I have seen 3 M1330 with CCFL backlight LCD. On all three, the brightness setting was set to 8 for both when on battery and when on AC Power. The setting is the same for all power plans: Balanced, Power Saver and High Performance.

Even when the notebook is on High Performance Power Plan and Brightness is set to 8 for both when on battery and when on AC Power, the display dims significantly (feels like the backlight has been turned off by half) when the AC Power cord is disconnected. Though it shows that the brightness level is still at 8, it is significantly dim on battery and feels like the backlight has been turned off by half than when it is on AC Power.

Are all the 3 M1330s my friends and I had are defective?

 

I think I found the answer in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=161030

As far as we can remember, the brightness setting in the BIOS was at default i.e., 8 on battery and 3 on AC power. That could be the culprit. However, as none of us have our M1330s anymore (all are in transit to Dell), we don't know for sure.

This is what the XPS Support had to say when my friend called: It is a feature to save your battery! If the notebook were to be as bright as it is on AC Power, the battery would run out in no time! NOW, WE KNOW IT ISN'T TRUE!

PS: I hardly noticed it as I used to use AC Power all the time.

 

I was having the same problem with my XPS M1330. You need to adjust the settings in the BIOS -- took forever to find it. The steps are below:

1. Press F2 rapidly during boot up until you come to the BIOS screen

2. Scroll down to ‘video’ using the down arrow button, hit enter

3. Scroll down to “Brightness AC,” hit enter

4. Change brightness level to 8 using right arrow key; hit enter

5. Press ESC and choose Save and Exit

Hope this helps.

 

That did it for me. How screwed up is it that there are two places to manage brightness, one completely unaware of the setting of the other?

Do you think if the brightness is set on 8 in the BIOS but turned down in windows it consumes more power than the reverse? (3 in BIOS, max on windows)

-- Jim C.

 

Nice, thanks Sfran, that was my problem as well... kind of stupid of dell to put that hidden in the BIOS.