Screen help

ergonomics

I bought a new Compaq laptop today and I noticed that when I unplug it from the charger the screen dims automatically. When it's plugged in it's lovely and bright and the dimness is slightly annoying. I was wondering if anyone knows how to change this or is it just one of those things I'll have to get used to?

Ruu_Old

I think thats just a power saving feature of the laptop. I'm not sure how it works on Compaq lappys.

ergonomics

That's what I thought too and I looked at the power saving settings and couldn't see a way to turn it off. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually!

Ruu_Old

Yep, my Dell Inspiron is the same. There was a thread about this issue before and I'm not sure if it was sorted or not. I'll try and dig it up later on, as a temporary measure you could always brighten the screen up (probably one of the function buttons at the top, Fn+ F1 or F2, etc)

seamus

There's probably a compaq-specific application in your system tray that controls this.

The only other solution I can think of is to remove the power cable (so the screen dims), then alter the brightness up to max. It may be set to remember how bright the screen was the last time you were running on batteries?

cudman

you could always try using some kind of illumination device and hold it up to the screen eg fag lighter, torch, bonfire. and that will make your screen easier to see.

Tom Dunne

cudman wrote:

you could always try using some kind of illumination device and hold it up to the screen eg fag lighter, torch, bonfire. and that will make your screen easier to see.

Hey there newbie, this is not a stuffy, pedantic, boring forum (despite my best efforts), but we do like to help one another whenever possible. Seeing as you are new to Boards.ie, I will be nice to you. But please keep your posts relevant and on topic.:)

ergonomics wrote:

I bought a new Compaq laptop today and I noticed that when I unplug it from the charger the screen dims automatically. When it's plugged in it's lovely and bright and the dimness is slightly annoying. I was wondering if anyone knows how to change this or is it just one of those things I'll have to get used to?

This is common on most laptops. There are usually several ways to fix this. As Seamus said, check the bottom-right of the screen for a power saving applet, normally activated by right-clicking on it.

Otherwise, brightness is usually controlled via the Fn key and some other key (page up, page down or maybe arrow-up and arrow-down).

Failing that, try the power options in the Control Panel (start->Settings->Control Panel).

ergonomics

Adjusted the brightness and now there's no difference between charger plugged in or out. Thanks a million everyone!