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How to adjust a laptop backlight in Windows XP
Grombar
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey everyone,
So my normal work computer is in the shop, and I'm borrowing an Alienware Aurora m7900 with Windows XP until my regular computer comes back.
The first day I started using the laptop, I noticed the screen's backlight was a little dark, so I tried adjusting it. The normal backlight adjustment keys for this laptop are Fn+F7 and Fn+F8. I tried Fn+F8, which did nothing. To see if it would work, I tried Fn+F7 next; that lowered the backlight's brightness, but Fn+F8 still wouldn't raise it.
Long story short, this laptop's backlight is now stuck on its lowest setting, and on further inspection, the F8 key doesn't work at all. I've tried using the onscreen keyboard, but that doesn't help, since the onscreen keyboard has no function key (and holding the physical keyboard's function key while pressing the virtual F8 does nothing). I've tried using AutoHotKey to rig up a simulated F8 key press, while holding the Fn key, but that doesn't work either; apparently, while the Fn key is held down, the computer recognizes the F8 key as a different key entirely, and there's no documentation as to what the name of that key might be. nd I triec
Oh, and I tried popping out the F8 key and pressing down on the pad underneath it; that didn't do anything either.
I've updated my graphics card's drivers, but that hasn't helped; I can adjust the card's brightness settings in the Display control panel, but that just makes things whiter, not brighter. I've looked into adjusting the laptop's power settings, but there's no option there, at least not in XP, to set the backlight's brightness.
So I'm stuck with this very dark screen, which makes it very hard to work, unless I can either find some config file that lets me adjust the backlight's brightness that way, or dig up some utility that can do the job.
Any advice? Thanks in advance.
So my normal work computer is in the shop, and I'm borrowing an Alienware Aurora m7900 with Windows XP until my regular computer comes back.
The first day I started using the laptop, I noticed the screen's backlight was a little dark, so I tried adjusting it. The normal backlight adjustment keys for this laptop are Fn+F7 and Fn+F8. I tried Fn+F8, which did nothing. To see if it would work, I tried Fn+F7 next; that lowered the backlight's brightness, but Fn+F8 still wouldn't raise it.
Long story short, this laptop's backlight is now stuck on its lowest setting, and on further inspection, the F8 key doesn't work at all. I've tried using the onscreen keyboard, but that doesn't help, since the onscreen keyboard has no function key (and holding the physical keyboard's function key while pressing the virtual F8 does nothing). I've tried using AutoHotKey to rig up a simulated F8 key press, while holding the Fn key, but that doesn't work either; apparently, while the Fn key is held down, the computer recognizes the F8 key as a different key entirely, and there's no documentation as to what the name of that key might be. nd I triec
Oh, and I tried popping out the F8 key and pressing down on the pad underneath it; that didn't do anything either.
I've updated my graphics card's drivers, but that hasn't helped; I can adjust the card's brightness settings in the Display control panel, but that just makes things whiter, not brighter. I've looked into adjusting the laptop's power settings, but there's no option there, at least not in XP, to set the backlight's brightness.
So I'm stuck with this very dark screen, which makes it very hard to work, unless I can either find some config file that lets me adjust the backlight's brightness that way, or dig up some utility that can do the job.
Any advice? Thanks in advance.
Grombar on
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Posts
This mentions a program called KeyTweak which seems like what you're looking for. I've never used it though, so I don't know how well it works. Everything else I read said to edit stuff in your registry, which I don't know if you are comfortable doing.
I solved the problem by accident this morning, when I drained the battery, left the laptop unplugged, for a while, plugged it back in, turned it on, was prompted to go into the BIOS, and chose "Optimal Default Settings"; that set the backlight back to a normal level.
Also, my nice new laptop got here this afternoon, a week early. Problem double-solved.