Missing brightness slider

[Lemur-Chan]

Hey, it's me again, the guy stupidly trying to install Windows 7 on a machine for which HP only offers Windows 10 drivers.  When last we left our hero, he had gotten rid of all the yellow exclamation marks in Device Manager.  Good news, but now the brightness function keys on the laptop are nonfunctional (predictably).  No settings in display options or the control panel can change this setting. I think this is because Windows is using a "Generic PnP" monitor driver which technically works but provides no display options. (The usual locations one would find brightness controls on Windows 7 (such as "power options") are similarly devoid of settings. Am I correct that the Generic PnP monitor driver is to blame?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

The problem is that Intel only developed W10 graphics drivers for platforms with the 7th gen core processors and Kaby Lake chipsets.

The only suggestion I can offer would be to try this workaround which is to modify a W10 driver to work on W7.

See Bruce BTS's post...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Video-Display-and-Touch/Windows-7-VGA-drivers-Probook-450-G4/...

You may as well try the driver on the discussion below first, and if it doesn't work, then substitute the hardware ID's for the Intel graphics adapter your model has.

Any notebook I have ever owned lists the monitor as a Generic PnP monitor.

Your issue lies in the device manager under the display adapters device manager category.

You will find a Standard VGA Adapter listed there, where there is supposed to be an Intel HD graphics adapter listed.

Without the graphics driver you cannot:

adjust the display resolution to its optimal setting

enable graphics acceleration

adjust the brightness (it is stuck on maximum)

put the PC to sleep.

[Lemur-Chan]

Thank you for this information, it will probably be helpful at some point down the line, but the immediate problem is that the screen is too dim, not too bright. If the ill-fitting graphics driver were the problem, I would expect (based on your words) that the machine would be stuck on "too bright" mode without any way to dim it down, but in fact the reverse seems to be true.  So there may be another explanation.  Is it possible that the computer is constantly perceiving itself in "low power" mode and dimming the screen accordingly?  The "power options" menu has not set to any kind of power-saving setting, but is it possible it's putting itself in that mode anyway?  Sorry if it seems like I'm grasping at straws here.  I guess the lesson is to never try and do this again...

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

All you have to do is to go to the device manager, click to expand the Display Adapters device manager category, and if you see a Standard VGA adapter listed there, then that is 100% your problem.

Other than installing W10, you would need to try and modify the W10 graphics driver to work in W7 as was done in the link I posted for you.

There is nothing further I nor anyone else can do to help you out of your dilemma, save the above.

[Lemur-Chan]

This worked unexpectedly well.  Thanks so much to the both of you!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.