Vista Smart Dimmer Problems

My smart dimmer seems to be broke. It will dim my screen after "x" minutes, but when I move my cursor or tap a key my screen stays dim. This has been going on for a while now. It used to work fine when I moved my cursor or tapped a key, and my screen would brighten up again. Now I have to either let it sleep, change my power profile, or brighten it up manually.

I'm not sure if it was a driver update or a microsoft update that broke it. I've tried reverting to previous drivers but it's still the same. I also noticed that after an update that I do not have all the options I used to have for my desktop background also. I only have the same old options that is in xp now.

Any help on the Dim thing would be appreciated as I really liked that feature.

Thanks,

 

same problem here.

 

when did this start happening for you bj02454? Was it a video driver update or a windows update? Maybe we can narrow down what our problem is.

 

Well, I lost it altogether with nvidia driver updates (do you know what flag to set to keep it enabled? I use nvision latest drivers), but I don't know if it ever worked right - I tried it about a month after getting vista, which was after a bunch of installs and drivers, and it was broken already (dims but doesn't return).

 

I had the exact same problem a few weeks ago. On the positive side, I fixed the problem. Unfortunately, I had to take apart the entire screen to do it; disconnect everything and reconnect it all back together. Since then, I have not had a problem. I cant remember if I updated the drivers also, but I may have. This was on my xps 1710 with Vista Ultimate x64.

 

Well, my screen's a little damaged and I'm going to try to get an LG from dell (have a sammy now) - I'll let you know if the replacement helps. Doubt it though - smartdimmer doesn't show up in the control panel at all. Anyone know what nvidia driver settings control it? Especially Czar, since he has an nvidia card and VuX64

 

For me I went into "Advanced Power Settings -> Display" and Smart Dimmer is Right there. In the Nvidia driver I have no idea how to set it there. Sorry. Maybe I'll try rolling back to a really early driver like the one that came with the laptop and see if it works. I'll let you guys know when I get a chance to try it out.

 

yeah - it was there at one point but gone now.

 

Okay, now that the semester is done I was able to go through some drivers that I had used before to see which ones had smart dimmer working. I had the following drivers:

90.xx
167.45
167.58
174.31
174.70
174.74
174.93

And only the 167.xx series were the only one that would recover after smart dimmer activated. So it looks like I will be sticking with the 167.xx series for now until smart dimmer works again.

I hope this helps you guys out and it works for you guys also with these drivers.

 

ive got the exact same problem with my sony vaio vgn-fe41s, it worked fine but now its started dimming the display and when i come back to it i have to manually incrase the brightness. It didnt used to do this until a few days ago, so im wondering a windows update or possibly vista SP1 has killed this feature. ive tried all the drivers you suggested above as well as the new ones, and it still just dims and wont brighten back up once i come back to using it.

ive also noticed now im on the 167.xx drivers that it now lists the amount of time to wait before the screen is dimmed to 3%, with the new drivers its listed as minutes? seems as if its totally corrupt now, and sometimes during games on battery it randomly dims the display. im currently trying setting the amount of time to 0%, and so far its looking good. just wish it would work like it used to!!

 

try :
go to control panel, then system, then device manager, then your graphics card. double click it, then go to driver, then click uninstall. When you reboot your computer install what drivers you know will work either by a download online or your driver cd, but dont use vista update to do it.

 

ive tried the above, and its still the same. like i said at first the older drivers show the time to wait in percentages, whilst the new drivers (174 onwards) display the amount of time to wait in minutes. the old drivers (167 and before) dont seem to dim the display at all now, while the 174s do but they dont return the brightness to the original setting which is quite annoying.



when i use the original sony drivers in the advanced power setting under smart dimming it looks corrupt like saying "@nvcplsr.dll Time to wait before dimming the display" and then a random number eg 1998776%, this isnt the case in the latest drivers though, everything is shown correctly, it just doesnt return the brightness to the original setting. Ive got a feeling service pack 1 for vista has had something to do with this, can anyone confirm they have smart dimming functioning correctly on vista sp1?

 

Hey jam,

I'm sorry to hear about your plight, however I'm running sp1 and for now I'm alright. Did you by chance update anything else other than going to sp1 recently? My lappy is fully up to date, but you never know.

I wonder if there is a video driver forum somewhere other than laptopVideo2go. I tried a search there with nothing. There has got to be more people with this problem other than us. Personally I like the feature, but if it's giving you issues I think turning it off was a great idea for a band-aid solution until you can get it fixed.

Sorry I can't offer much more help than what I've already done. But I'll keep an eye out, and if I find anything I'll post here.

 

one thing i am going to try tonight is uninstalling/updating sony vaio power management tool, im not sure if it even does anything. im wondering if this might be incompatible with vista sp1 or something. i havent installed anything as such no, all ive been doing recently is tidying the laptop up eg sorting icons and various things out, and this is when i noticed this stupid little bug.

i'll let you know if the vaio power management tool cures it, im hoping it does because i really do like the smart dimmer feature, it worked well when i had it because i could put the laptop down when not using it and keep glancing for any emails etc

 

Let me know how it goes. I would love to know how you were able to fix your problem. That way if someone else I know has the same problem I can inform them how to fix it.

Good luck!

 

hiya, well i took the vaio power management utility off and it was exactly the same. so ive ended up staying with the 167.62 drivers where the screen does dim, it just requires manually adjusting omnce you come back to it. i have now set the time to wait to 0% and to adjust the screen brightness by 0%, it seems to have disabled it, so thats good for me until i hear of a way to fix it! the brightness dims and brightens when i switch from ac to battery and this is more than my last laptop did so i cant complain. might try tonight creating a new power profile, cant see it changing anything but its worth a try. there has to be something simple causing this!

 

...and thats exactly what smartdimmer does with the 175.12 drivers (and presumably the latest) - so why go with 169's?

 

ok what drivers do you suggest me to use then? thanks

 

I have this exact same problem and it is driving me crazy! I had no idea it was related to nVidia drivers... I had always thought it was a Vista thing. Any progress on this topic? Is it possible to disable SmartDimmer or something? I figured I would try and get a hold of the guy at LaptopVideo2Go and see if he knows anything about it since he can mod the drivers and such. I'm ready to get this thing fixed.

Thanks,
-- Ryan

 

i have this exact same problem using windows 7 beta...and i want to kill something its driving me so mad