Laptop screen going dim to bright

I've just recently noticed that my laptop screen is going from dim to bright every few minutes. It doesn't matter if I have my charger plugged into it or not or if I adjust the brightness myself. It always got back and forth from bright to dim. I have a Satellite S875-S7376 laptop. I've tried to do some research on it here and on the internet before posting this but nothing seems to work with what I have. Any ideas to what this is? Thanks in advance for your help.

Try using System Restore to restore to the most recent restore point from before this began.
How To: Understanding System Restore, Refresh, Reset, and, Recovery options in Windows 8 + Video
- Peter

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Help! screen goes dim, just the editing window

Hi there, I am running photoshop cs4 extended on windows 7 on hp. once in a while my screen goes dim making editing difficult. My monitor is profiled and is fine. the only thing dim is the images on my first screen. I run two screens, when I pull PS over to my other monitor it brightens up. So Its not in my file, and it isn't affecting photoshops menu bars or anything like that, and its only intermitent. the first screen is the profiled one as it is much higher quality, the second screeen is only for tools and web browsing. In have checked a lot of things and have no idea what causes this or any solution, any advice would be great.

Cannot possibly be, as for one it is a desktop computer that has no power management, and two the menu bars, tools and everything else stays the same brightness, it is only the editing window itself.
Thank you for trying, it is appreciated.

Screen goes dim when processor working - even when plugged to mains power.

Screen goes dim when processor working - even when plugged to mains power.
Whether I'm running 3D software or just surfing the net, the screen keeping fading/dimming and then recovering over a few seconds. No USB devices connected, mains power on - NOT IMPRESSED!
Any ideas - a hardware problem? Back to Mac?

If you go to System Preferences > Energy Saver, the is a checkbox under the "options" tab that says, "Automatically reduce the brightness of the display before display sleep." On my new MBP (10.5.1), this was "on" by default. Try unchecking it and see if it helps.

Laptop screen goes black when HDMI connected to TV

I have a Thinkpad Edge 431. I've set it up in Control Panel to duplicate both the laptop and the external monitor when connected by HDMI. It works fine.
When I connect it to my TV, the laptop screen black. The TV displays "No Signal" until the HDMI connection is made. When the laptop screen goes black, so does the TV screen. No sound or picture.
This was working fine until recently, and I can't figure out if I somehow changed settings to make this happen. It's clear that to me that the HDMI port on the laptop works, as does the cable.
The TV port works (I've switched the connection on the cable box to each HDMI port on the TV, to make sure they work).
I can't change anything in Control Panel when I connect the HDMI, because the screen is black.
I've updated the Lenovo system.
The other relevant piece of info: the Intel Graphics Card control panel says that Monitor/TV Settings are not supported (although until recently, I could easily display the computer on the TV).
Can anyone help with this? Thanks!

No video and audio signals to the tv connected

[SOLVED] Connecting extra Monitor, laptop screen goes black.

Whenever i connect a additional monitor through HDMI (my only output), the laptop screen goes black. If i do FN + external_monitor switch, then the laptop screen turns on but the external monitor turns off.
If you move the mouse you can feel that the desktop has been extended as i wanted, it is just that one of the screens keeps going black. The gnome display settings show both screens as active, the menu is so minimalistic that there is not much to do.
system
[cristobal@orion ~]$ uname -a
Linux orion 3.11.4-1-razer #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Oct 8 12:31:50 CLST 2013 x86_64 GNU/Linux
As a side note, the custom kernel is almost identical to the original archlinux one, just that USB 3.0 module is disabled.
some packages
[cristobal@orion ~]$ pacman -Q nvidia-dkms bumblebee bbswitch-dkms nvidia-utils gnome-desktop
nvidia-dkms 325.15-2
bumblebee 3.2.1-3
bbswitch-dkms 0.7-1
nvidia-utils 325.15-1
gnome-desktop 1:3.10.0-1
Any ideas?
Last edited by labotsirc (2013-10-15 18:33:18)

The problem is now fixed,
For some weird reason, this time the gnome settings did work. Must have been some sort of rare bug that now i cannot reproduce.
Last edited by labotsirc (2013-10-15 18:32:53)

When I browse the net, the screen goes dim

I've had the phone about a month and am generally pleased, but as a novice, I can't figure out certain things. One of them is that when I use the web browser, the screen goes dim (almost to the point of unreadability). It doesn't seem to do this for any other activity that I can recall. Anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks, I appreciate the response. I got this worked out last night via Verizon phone support. As you say, it was in the menu once I'd opend the browser by going to the lower left button on the phone, bringing up the menu. I had not realized that if I scrolled through this menu, there were more options I wasn't seeing. Silly me, but good to get it worked out.

My laptop screen goes black when i plug in an Hdmi cord

Initially I had both my tv and computer off. I connected the dvi to the tv and the hdmi to the laptop and turned them both on. I had no issue using my laptop as i tried to sync the computer to the TV. However i must have accidentally hit something in the graphics options as my laptop screen went black. I unplugged the hdmi cord from my laptop and the screen came back up. But now for some reason everytime i plug in the hdmi cord to the laptop the screen goes black. When i take it out it the screen comes back up. Did i change something that is causing this to happen? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I have pretty much the same exact problem and setup as DaveA1. I have a Toshiba Satellite Laptop C55T-A5123 which I just purchased a few months ago and when I connect my laptop to my SONY TV via the HDMI cable the screen on my laptop goes black and the TV says no signal. It was working just fine up until about a week ago when I was watching a movie through my VLC player and then the screen flickered a couple times then video went completely out and I've never been able to get it to come back even once.
Here's the specs on my laptop:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114907
So far I have tried on two different TVs, swapped HDMI cables which work on my other HDMI devices, system restore and attempted to update various different drivers. I am curious to find out if Dave was able to find a solution to his problem.

Screen goes dim

Lately, about once every two days, the light on my laptop screen slowly but surely becomes dimmer for about 10-20 seconds until it is near black. Then it suddenly lights up back to normal. Any idea what is causing this?
Thanks,
J

does this behaviour occur on external monitor? also have you tried to update the thinkpad power manager and bios?
this dimming could be caused by softwares (which we try our best to rule out first) or the CCFl backlight/inverter hardware.
Regards,
Jin Li
May this year, be the year of 'DO'!
I am a volunteer, and not a paid staff of Lenovo or Microsoft

Screen goes to zero Brightness

Every time I reboot, my screen automatically goes to zero brightness. I have been having issues with the computer not responding (which I've yet to resolve) but this problem just started happening. Could the two be related? I have an ibook G4 2004 14" screen 256mb 40 g
Any help is much appreciated.
D

Hi Exdj99,
Welcome to Apple Discussions
Yes, they could be related, but it's hard to say at the moment. Can you get the screen to lighten up? How do you know the brightness goes to zero instead of the screen not turning on? Can you see the outline of the images on the display? When does your computer not respond? Do you try to start it on the battery, power cord, or both?
You may want to look at/try...
Knowledge Base Document #300552 on My computer won't turn on (Display troubleshooting
Knowledge Base Document #106214 on Troubleshooting Startup Issues
Knowledge Base Document #14449, which covers Resetting Powerbook and iBook Power Management Unit (PMU)
Jon
Macbook 2.0 White (100Gb HD 2Gb RAM) Mac Mini 1.42Ghz, iPod (All), Airport (Graphite & Express), G4 1.33Ghz iBook, G4 iMac 1Ghz, G3 500Mhz, iBook iMac 233Mhz, eMate, Power Mac 5400 LC, PowerBook 540c, Macintosh 128K, Apple //e, Apple //, and some more... Mac OS X (10.4.5) Moto Razr, iLife '06, SmartDisk 160Gb, Apple BT Mouse, Sight..

Narcoleptic laptop - screen goes black while working

Hi ho,
About a week ago my mac started acting strange. I'll be working and the screen will just go black. (it just did it again! Sometimes if I'm listening to music on my mac, the music will stop, so it's not just the screen going black, it's like the computer goes to sleep out of the blue.
I was trying out bittorent for the first time and I'm wondering it it's related to that, if there is something I don't know coming on to my computer from the internet, please advise. I took bittorent off and it'll still appear. A window from Opera will open, so I took Opera off my computer in case there is something downloading. I never use Opera, so I don't know why it keeps coming up.
When it goes black, sometimes if I click the power button, I'll hear the disk repower up and the screen will go on, but it isn't all the time. Once I get it started again, it may be a few minutes and it'ss do it again without warning, or it could be 10 seconds. There's no rhyme or reason.
Another thing I notice is that the laptop will get hot, and I'm wondering if it's an emergency mechanism if the computer is getting too hot.
Please help, of course, I'm dead without being able to use my computer! And this is totally messing with my productivity!
Message was edited by: madamep

Hi, madamep. A properly-functioning Powerbook should put itself to sleep (not shut down entirely) before it gets hot enough to do real damage to itself. That may be what's happening with yours, as you say it seems to be getting pretty hot.
I suggest opening Activity Monitor and seeing whether something is using a lot of CPU cycles a lot of the time, thus generating extra heat. If you find that something is, and it's something you recognize and can comfortably turn off, do so. Then see whether the unexpected-sleep problem diminishes or disappears. If there's nothing drawing heavily on your processor, are you using the Powerbook on a soft surface (bed, sofa, lap, etc.) that's inhibiting airflow around the PB's shell and through its cooling vents? If so, don't: it needs unobstructed airflow all around it, including underneath — that's why it has little rubber feet, to keep it elevated slightly above your table- or desktop. Always use it on a hard, flat surface, and if the feet have come off it, replace them with something that will provide airspace under the PB at all times. Also check to make sure the vents haven't become clogged with dust or fuzz: use canned compressed air or a household vacuum cleaner (not the brush attachment — that can generate a lot of static electricity that's dangerous to electronics) to clean the vents from the outside.

Laptop screen goes completely black but shows that it's still on

Hello everyone, i'm in need of serious help!
I bought this laptop over 2 years ago (October of 2008 to be somewhat exact). It's a Windows Vista Home Premium, with service pack 2.
its an HP pavilion dv7 notebook pc
processor: AMD Turion (tm) X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-70 2.00 GHz
Ram: 4GB
system type: 64-bit operating system
im assuming the video card information are as follow:
name: ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
chip type: ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics (0x9612)
DAC type: Internal DAC (400MHz)
total memory: 1914MB
memory: 3836MB RAM
page file: 2163MB used, 5732MB available
current display is 1440 x 900 (32 bit)(60Hz)
directx version: directx 11
with that being said... here's my dilemma...
Each time i play the video game, "World of warcraft", my laptop's screen goes completely black but it shows as if though it is still on. I can't see the screen but it shows that it is still on by the little lights on the bottom of the screen.
I took my laptop to a family friend who knows a lot about computers to see if they can fix it for me. They told me that everything was running fine, everything is okay, the ram, memory, graphic card, everything passed the test, and it was not over heating... there was nothing wrong with my laptop. They THOUGHT it could be the motherboard, so they tried it, but in the end, it wasn't. Unfortunately the problem was not solved.
I played World of warcraft on this laptop before. When i first bought it. It ran smoothly and gave me no problem whatsoever. I'm clueless is to though why it's giving me problems NOW.
Could anyone please please pleaseeeee help me? i have given up already. I have done everything i could. Please help me! i believe i have done a total one 1 or 2 system restore to factory settings, the 2nd one was recently (probably a month ago) and i'm not sure if maybe perhaps i needed to DL something else? i have DL all the updates that microsoft offered to me when needed and when it was necessary, but this particularly problem was never fixed.
someone please help me! Thank you so much!

erichon99,
I think i may have found MY solution but i have yet to test it out... No one helped me. No one at all. I took my PC to a family friend company and they did everything for me: ran tests to see if my laptop is up to date with everything, removed graphic card and put a better one and nothing still. They thought it was my mother board but they ran tests again and everything on my laptop past the test. My graphic card was fine, ram was perfect, memory was perfect, everything everything on my laptop was perfect. They couldn't find out what was the problem. I took it to best buy and not even them could help me. When i was about to give up, my fiance, he did some research and found this guy on youtube who does LIVE recordings and answers people's questions. My fiance asked the question and he got serveral responses. Out of 10, i would say about 2 or 3 of them mentioned, "it's the power cord" the rest said it might be virus, or a card is not working properly, etc. You can give it a shot (buying a new power cord) those who told my fiance that it could be my power cord, said to get those power cord that has a fan in them.
I think this makes sense because my screen goes black only when i'm playing a game. even when i play cityville on facebook it goes that black screen, but it doesn't go black, it does that pixelated, rainbow, warning bar, thingy (i hope you know what i mean lol) and when i touch my power cord to my laptop it is BURNING hot. What i do is, when my battery is fully charge, i disconnect and play my game, and to not lose any docs i left open, i close my games, and plug back in. I've been lazy to find another power cord lol i guess i should start now, huh? lol
i hope this help. I would say (if you've done everything like how i did) buy a power cord that matches your laptop, but with a FAN in it (i was told it's the best and you'll never have that problem of freezing or whatever)

Wireless upgrade and screen goes dim questions? - 2different things in one thread

I have a T42. Recent upgrade is replacing the hard drive and upgrade the RAM to max. I am thinking of upgrading the wireless card to improve the internet speed. Any suggestion?
The machine was not behaving lately. The screen went dim (very dim) and sometimes black and white. It seems that it went to battery mode by itself. Wondering what causes this? The machine was connected to AC and I set never hibernate and turn-off when AC plug-in.
Thanks.

Cannot possibly be, as for one it is a desktop computer that has no power management, and two the menu bars, tools and everything else stays the same brightness, it is only the editing window itself.
Thank you for trying, it is appreciated.

IBook G3 screen going dim?

Hi,
My 12" iBook's screen has been misbehaving! This morning it flickered several times and went very dim to the point where i could only just see what was on the screen. I restarted, reset nvram etc but it was still the same. Later in the day it came back on but it only seems to be around half brightness although it occasionally goes as bright as it should it soon reverts back to dim. A quick google seems to point to the inverter board so i've picked one up off eBay, but i also notice there is a inverter lead, do i need to replace this as well?

Hey Mark,
Not sure which iBook you have but look here for the takeapart.
They're all pretty similar.
http://www.baconeggs.co.uk/manuals/index.htm
it flickered several times and went very dim to the point where i could only just see what was on the screen.
So if it just gets dim and you can see the video still most likely it's the inverter cable if not the inverter. If you move the display up and down and it flashes on and off then it's definitely the cable.
Check it particularly near the hinge point. You'll have to unwrap the metallic cloth like tape there. Check it carefully. Usually it shorts out or opens up. If it shorts badly it will take out a tiny SMT fuse on the logic board.
Richard
Message was edited by: spudnuty
Message was edited by: spudnuty

IMac screen going dim . . .

Lately my older imac screen has been somewhat dim when waking from sleep.... only happens sometimes, seems to be normally bright at the bottom, growing dimmer the further toward the top you look .... if I restart, everything is fine again.
Hardware problem? Seems unlikely since it seems unrelated to how long the computer has been on, it's immediately fine on restart. Any ideas appreciated . . .

Some problem with my iMac. Took it back to the Apple Reseller, they 'repaired' it after 3 weeks. Got it back, still the same problem. Called them and they said is was a normal buzz which the inverter card(?) makes, like the fan and the HD.

Screen goes dark to bright and bright to dark constantly.

Why is my display going from dark to bright and bright to dark while I am using it? I have it set for manual screen lighting control but it doesn't make any difference.

SMC and PRAM reset
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Laptop screen going dim to bright

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