Max brightness on start up

Question

I've had my iMac for a couple of years.
Just recently, every time I start up, the display brightness is maxed all the way up as the default, and I have to turn it back down. So it's not remembering the setting I use.
Very irritating. Any way to fix this?

Answer 1

Sometimes, odd behavior is indicative of other issues; since symptoms
aren't always directly related to the cause. Have you performed any of
the regular or routine maintenance on the system? It may seem like a
redundant question, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, you
probably haven't done most of them which could've prevented this issue.
Sometimes, it may help to boot up using keyboard commands, such as
they are, to reset PRAM and NVRAM. This can flush settings of a few
things in the system, and then they may default to normal again. Or start
the computer up from the OS X install disc and run the Disk Utility version
from there, with the hard disk drive unmounted, to 'repair disk' and also to
'repair disk permissions' - though settings may be related to User account
matters, and preventative maintenance appears to be most helpful.
Start up in SafeBoot mode, run Disk Utility's repair disk permissions;
restart normally. Get and run Titanium Software's OnyX for your OS X
version; run the selection "Automation" with all check-boxed marked.
{Run OnyX utility (note to set its preference to restart the computer by itself
after OnyX runs) and be sure it has plenty of time to do this job.} + If you
have never used SafeBoot, that can take time in and by itself; holding
the Shift key down until you get a login screen, on startup, for starters.
There are Single user mode and also Terminal commands one can learn
to use, to help resolve user account or system-wide issues; but I have
found (so far) to not need to go beneath the GUI in order to prevent issues.
If nothing else works, see if this utility is supported by your computer's OS X:
Shades http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/31515
+Also, if your computer has not been updated to the latest step version in the+
+download/update progression, including security updates & java, etc, you+
+may consider making a backup of your computer's contents, and update it all.+
Another possibility, back in the maintenance division, +if nothing else helps+, you
may consider trying a power management reset (system management controller)
to see if that may help get the computer to default to basic values. There may be
a .plist file involved, too, that may simply be removed while in SafeBoot, and then
the computer would re-create the default one on restart or resetting after restart.
However that turns out...
Good luck & happy computing!
{ edited 2x due to lack of coffee }