Cannot change brightness of the screen - HP ENVY 17 Notebook PC

[q_hung]

 After upgrading to Windows 8.1, I have the below problems:

- I can not change brightness of the screen on my laptop

- When I clicked on "Contact technical support" on HP support assistant programe, it showed an error "HP support assistant has stopped working"... and closed the programe. I downloaded the new one from HP, but the same problem occured.

My laptop PC info

Product name: HP ENVY 17 Notebook PC

Product number: A9P84UA#ABA

Please instruct me how to fix it. Thanks.

[banhien]

Hi,

Please reinstall keyboard and mouse driver (Synaptics TouchPad driver) using the following file:

   http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp58501-59000/sp58806.exe

FYI: the model of your machine is: HP ENVY 17-3270NR

Regards.

[q_hung]

It did not work! I do not think keyboard and mouse drivers relate to the screen brightness.

[q_hung]

Can anyone help? I do not want my screen at maximum brightness at all time!

[SuperMario1]

Hello q_hung. I understand you are experiencing an issue with screen brightness, after upgrading to Windows 8.1. I located an excellent thread that contains troubleshooting and solutions on your exact issue: http://www.eightforums.com/drivers-hardware/33433-brightness-won-t-adjust-after-windows-8-1-update.h...

Please inform me when troubleshooting is complete so I know the results. I will continue to troubleshoot if necessary. I look forward to your response.

Mario

[braveboy510]

Assuming you have an hp envy 17 3xxx laptop and not an older model, I hopefully have a fix for you.

The first thing you'll need to do is go to hp's driver download section on their website and find the graphics driver for your laptop:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-114680-1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en...

Save it to your desktop; You'll need it later. The next thing you'll need to download is a file that is meant to fix your brightness once you reinstall the AMD drivers. you can find it at the following link:

http://adrynalyne.blogspot.com/2012/10/fix-brightness-control-for-windows-8.html      (It's the first download option)

I understand that this is for the hp envy 15, but it should also work for the hp envy 17. Try installing this first before continuing, because it may fix your problem right away. If it doesn't, continue. 

Uninstall your AMD graphics driver through control panel. Microsoft installed a new one over your existing one when it installed 8.1. Stay away from Windows update in the future; it's complete junk.

Select express uninstall everything when the prompt pops up, go through the steps, then restart your computer. 

Boot back into your Desktop, and go straight to device manager (right click windows button, click device manager). find the "display adapters" section, right click and uninstall everything under the drop-down. After you've done this, close out and restart your computer yet again. 

After you restart this time, the screen resolution and performance should look pretty bad. This is a good thing, because it means that there is now no graphics driver on your computer. 

Select and install the default hp graphics driver that you saved to your desktop earlier. It should be pretty straightforward, just install express settings. After it's finished installing, restart YET AGAIN. This is the pain that microsoft puts us through, never forget it. 

After your computer restarts, go to desktop and open that brightness fix .reg file and add it to registry with registry editor. Finally, restart....again. 

After this last restart, you should have full-controll over your brightness and graphics cards again. If you want to update to the newest AMD drivers, don't. AMD doesn't have them optimized for switchable graphics, and it will break your newly fixed driver installation. Just stick with the older. 

Well, I hope this helped you. I've done this countless times for my hp envy 15-3200, and It hasn't failed for me yet. The last stable AMD driver to work for me without ruining my system is 13.6 beta 1, so feel free to try that out instead of the newest drivers. And have a wonderful day 🙂

[q_hung]

Hi SuperMario1,

I tried the íntructions in the link. After updating Intel HD Graphics 4000 to "Microsoft Basic Díplay Adapter", it worked immediately and I could change the brightness. However, when I restarted my PC, the problem was back (could not adjust the brightness). I restarted my PC again and I had another problem, the Windows logo appeared for some seconds, then screen turned black though I could see the arrow when moving the mouse. I restarted my PC many times and nothing changed!

Now I do not know what to do with my computer! I need to fix my second problem first! Please help!

[q_hung]

Hi braveboy510,

Thank you for your long post. I will try it after my new problem is fixed!

[braveboy510]

Okay, this problem is fixable, but it's a little difficult to do. You first must hold the power button on your computer until it is off completely. 

Next - and this is the part that you may need to repeat if it doesn't work the first time - turn on your computer and immediately hold shift, while repeatedly mashing F8. This will SOMETIMES boot you into the advanced boot options section, but not always. If nothing happens, or if you open the automatic system repairer instead, hold the power buttin until your computer is completely off. Repeat this process until your computer boots you into the advanved booot menu. From there, you need to select on either "see advanced repair options" or "troubleshoot", whichever comes first (i forget, sorry). The ultimate goal of doing this is to start the computer in safe mode, but this is fairly difficult in windows 8.1, if you don't have access to a command prompt at the start. Anyway, once inside the advanced startup options, select troubleshoot, then advanced options. After clicking Advanced options, select windows startup settings, and your computer should show you which ket to pust to restart it in safe mode. Press said key and boot into safe mode.

Now you'll want to go go from your desktop to device manager, where you'll uninstall everything under display adapters. Restart, boot back into desktop, and go directly to control panel, where you need to uninstall the AMD Catalyst control center from the programs list. Restart again. Now download your original drivers from the site i mentioned in my first post, and install them. Enjoy.

[q_hung]

Hi braveboy510,

I now can access to my computer. Thank you very much.

I followed your instructions for drivers installing/ uninstalling twice, but not success. The problem was that ater unstalling all drivers under the Display Adapter, then restarting the computer, all those drivers were still there (it seemed that those one re-installed themselves). I tried disconnecting the internet connection, but had the same issue!

Maybe I have to wait for the new driver updated by HP (presently, in the driver download, there is no one available for Windows 8.1 for my computer model Envy 17-3270nr.)