Brightness not adjustable in Windows 8.1 Sony Vaio (formerly sleep issue)

Question

AAAAAARGH. Whenever I hear the word VAIO my blood pressure rises. Model: VPCYB13KX/P (P=Pink) but the problem seems to be a universal oneMajor problems: cannot change brightness at all, closing the lid puts computer in non-responsive but 100% CPU state (judging by the CPU cooler fan turning on to max and enough heat radiating from the base of the laptop to fry an egg)OS: Windows 8.1 upgraded from a clean install of Windows 8 64 bit So, in my case I clean installed Windows 8 followed by 8.1. Vaio "care" (if that's what you want to call it) and all the ancillary junk was installed as well (much of it removed in trouble shooting). Before I did trouble shooting I had four major problems:1 FN keys (F5/F6) did not adjust brightness at all (still broken, and officially broken for the VPCYB series according to http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/support-info.pl?info_id=1380)2 FN keys (F3/F4) did not adjust sound (fixed, not sure when)3 Brightness could not be changed AT ALL (broken, fixed and now broken again by solution to sleep problem)4 Closing the laptop's lid would cause the computer to go into a "frozen" but active state out of which it couldn't be woken up (fixed by steps at end of post)5 Complaint during boot about missing file (see http://community.sony.com/t5/Windows-8/iolorgdf32-program-can-not-be-found-Skipping-Autocheck/td-p/161333 for someone else's description of problem) (not fixed; not bothered to try... seems like a minor problem compared to everything else)6 mf110u DLL missing dialogue box upon startup (see http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_update/mfc110udll-missing-windows-8-pro-updates-wont/9596536f-a405-4b1e-b8cf-b06e28b7fea4?msgId=28e1af2b-d536-4258-aea2-a1155cc6464b) (fixed) Re: 3 brightness. Before the sleep fix (billed as a brightness fix) was applied I was able to adjust brightness using the Windows brightness controls (one in the new interface and one in the desktop/traditional interface). Now I can't. Re: 5 and 6 My guess is that #5 and #6 have to do with the Vaio Care software (which seems to be someone else's software repackaged?). This laptop has been a support headache from day one, even under the 'clean' OEM Windows 7 Home Premium with Vaio drivers and software being the culprits 95% of the time (terrible QAQC). Until very recently I had problems with the wifi cutting out daily in Windows 7 Home Premium (only fixed when I clean installed Ultimate and used non-Sony driver for wifi... I should've stuck with 7 Ultimate and not boethered with 8). What others have been told would correct their brightness problem fixed my sleep problem (I can close the lid now) but it broke my brightness adjustment ability. I'm now stuck at 100% no matter what I do. PS These are the instructions for how to fix the brightness problem (and, to reiterate, it broke my brightness solution but fixed my sleep problem): 1.Launch Task Manager
2.Terminate two tasks
•esrv.exe
•esrv_svc.exe
3.Delete “sony_acpi_battery_input.dll” Under “C:\Program Files\Sony\VAIO Care\ESRV\sony_acpi_battery_input.dll”
4.Restart PC So, if anyone has a suggestion about how to get brightness working without breaking sleep please let me know. If I don't have any success fixing this I'm simply going to downgrade the laptop to Windows 7 Ultimate again and transfer my Windows 8 licence to my home built desktop machine (I was going to pick up a second licence but maybe I won't bother since I'll only need one).

Answer 1

I did try that IIRC but no luck. I've simply given up and gone back to Windows 7 because I don't have the luxury of devoting time to re-installing software when I've got toddlers screaming for my attention and work taking up the rest of my time. I haven't installed a single piece of Sony software on my Windows 7 install and so far only two things were not working: brightness control and a broken wifi driver. I fixed the driver (Sony doesn't provide a fix for the faulty wifi driver for the VPCYB13KX, nor does Microsoft) by installing a driver from the web (care of Atheros.cz). And, i haven't bothered to go after the brightness control because it's not as pressing an issue as the faulty wifi driver. Plus, I don't have any of the Sony bloatware slowing things down (installing an SSD at the same time may have had something to do with the speed up ;-). Plus, in many ways going back to Windows 7  simplifies my life big time since it is a computer that's being used by two people and Windows 8.1 makes accomodating the work flow of two separate people in one account difficult. Tangent... And, it means that at least one computer isn't subject to the prying eyes of Microsoft Live. I am becoming really leery of the amount of information that private companies (which means there is zero transparency) are able to collect and sell about private individuals through Windows 8.1, Mac OS X 10.9 and Google OS. If you happen to allow the wrong settings these OSes are able to track and store phenomenal levels of personal information (which police would never be able to find out about you without a warrant, let alone store in perpetuity). And, who knows if these OSes even honour your opt-outs. Or, if through coding errors they still continue to collect the data anyway.