LCD Brightness - any ways to lower it past the stock limits?

I'm looking to extend battery life. When I bottom out my panel brightness (ie. using the windows mobility center) the panel is still plenty bright. The value range is 20 - 100 on my system.

Are there any tricks to extend this range even lower in order to save more power?

 

Are you sure you're using the right graphics driver (i.e. do you see green bars when you adjust brightness)? I ask because mine gets very dim when I drop to 0 bars (tend to run 3/15 in pitch black and 10/15 in normal lighting). Mobility center bottom out at 20 for me as well.

Also, what's your power consumption? It should be between 5.5 and 6.0 watts with a fully dim screen, Wi-fi off, and an idle system.

 

I don't see green bars when I adjust brightness. I have the Windows Update version of the Intel driver installed (in fact it just updated today to 8.15.10.2021 12/14/09). Is installing the "Intel GM45 Display Driver" from the Lenovo support site (currently 8.15.10.1855 10/21/09) enough to get the green bars? or is there some other driver/utility needed? (I'm starting from a clean Win7 x64 install)

I get about 6.6 watts of consumption (with Wi-fi on but not in use) on a somewhat idle system with a fully dim screen.

 

use 1855.

I just went through the different drivers available. 2021 won't give you the right brightness or the on screen display.

 

I've confirmed that 1855 from Lenovo's support site has expanded the range (at least the lower range) of the brightness. At this lower range my power consumption has dropped to a flat 6 watts (same environment as my last test above). This driver did *not* add any green bar OSD - I see nothing on the screen when hitting Fn-Home/End or adjusting brightness via the mobility center, it just allowed me to make things darker.

I suspect this range it has nothing to do with the driver version, but more to do with it being customized for Lenovo (ie. a Lenovo INF in the driver package with specific customizations). For example, the last Windows Update driver gave me the same results as 2021.

What have you long time Lenovo users seen in terms of Intel display driver updates - will Lenovo post a newer graphics driver for an existing product? What's the delay from Intel's release of that driver to when Lenovo posts it?