Why can't I adjust the display brightness on my M1330? (using Win7 & LED backlit display)

This is a beta operating system - presumably the problem will be fixed before late October when WIn 7 is released.  For now, you cannot expect a manufacturer to support an OS that has yet to be released.

Hello Dizzious,

I think this functionality is Independent of the operating system. If you go into the BIOS and you are not able to adjust the brightness by either using the FN+Up / FN+Down keys, or the brightness menu in the BIOS, something most be wrong at hardware level.

I have 3 different Dell laptops (Inspiron 4000, Inspiron 6000 and a Studio 17) all 3 in the BIOS if I press FN+Up / FN+Down keys it adjust the Brightness.

If I were you I contact Dell support.

Hope this Helps!  :emotion-1:

Nope.
I'm dual-booting Win Seven and WinXP on there; and in Win XP, the brightness adjustment works perfectly. Brightness adjustment in bios & FN+up/down works fine before the OS boots as well. It's only when the machine is running Win Seven that it doesn't work.

I cannot adjust the brightness of the display at all in Windows Seven - it doesn't matter if I use the FN+Up / FN+Down keys, the brightness option slider bar in Windows, or adjust it in bios.

 Sorry I misunderstood your 1st statement. I though it was not working in the BIOS.

I have Windows 7 in dual boot configuration with Vista on my Studio 17 (1737) and on mine it works. The only driver I installed on the Studio 17 is the ATI video driver since I am not able to find any other driver for the devices that show with a Bang in Device manager.

Do you have any bang(s) in Device Manager? If so, Which device(s) have the bang?

Posting my solution in case it helps others...

I just installed Windows 7 RTM (32-bit) on my M1330 and immediately ran into the same (or at least very similar) problem...  If I tried to turn down the brightness just a notch in Windows 7, using Fn-Down, the screen would just turn completely off.  And I couldn't even turn it back up using Fn-Up - it would just stay off.  To turn it back on, I'd have to hit the power button which put the machine to sleep.  If I then woke it back up, the display was restored (whew!).  Basically, I was stuck at full brightness, or no display at all.

To fix, I did the following... Downloaded latest M1330 drivers from Dell for Vista 32-bit (v7.17, A10).  Ran the installer.  It refused to install because it said the drivers were incompatible with the OS.  So I exited the installer, found the setup.exe in the folder the drivers were extracted to.  Right-clicked on setup.exe and chose Properties then on the compatibility tab, I set the mode to Vista SP2.  I then re-ran the setup.exe and it was now willing to install the drivers.  It did warn me that the drivers I was installing were older than what Windows 7 installed - version 7.14 versus 8.something-or-other.  I just told it to go ahead and install anyways, and then rebooted.  I'm now fully controlling the brightness in Windows 7 using the Fn-Up/Down keys.  Only difference from Vista is that in Vista the drivers would display a little yellow bar on the screen when adjusting the brightness to show me the level.  This isn't appearing in Windows 7.  I don't really care.

Sweet! That worked! You know, I was so positive that compatibility mode wouldn't work for a driver installer, that I never even tried it. Thanks so much! :emotion-2:

I am getting the yellow bar for brightness when I adjust it - I'm almost positive that the yellow bar is part of Dell Quickset, I know it didn't show up in Windows XP until I installed Quickset.

Hi jpwarsall

I have exactly the same problem you've described with W7 and my M1330. Could you please provide details on wich driver you've downloaded for the M1330. I was looking in the drivers support page and I coudn't find any driver with such version (V7.17, A10), Is this the Video driver? It would be perfect if you can include the link or something like that.

Many thanks for your help

elChurles

Yes is the graphic driver, in my case it was Intel GM965 Express Chipset Family, v.7.14.10.1409, A10