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I know there are many questions on here regarding auto brightness/dimming, and I've been through many of them. I have a laptop (Dell Inspiron 15 7000 series) with Intel graphics. I have disabled/done the following:

  • Edited Windows Power Plan settings and disabled Adaptive Brightness for both power and plugged in modes
  • Edited Windows Display settings and toggled off 'Change brightness automatically when light changes'
  • Opened Intel Graphics Properties and gone to Power > On Battery > and disabled Display Power Saving Technology (and even the Extended Battery Life for Gaming option)

Still, my laptop (while plugged in, nonetheless) is changing the contrast on my screen when switching between dark and light backgrounds. For instance, if I have Sublime Text open with a dark theme and I switch to a localhost website, all of my Chrome tabs are faded/washed out and it takes a few seconds for them to come back to normal.

I have referenced this question here on SU, but nothing has changed since I have implemented all of those fixes. It seems like a "feature" I still can't find the setting for, because it is consistent and not at all buggy -- just ugly!

I feel like I'm chasing my tail trying to find more settings that would control this. Thanks in advance.

4 Answers 4

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My issue has disappeared after two things, and unfortunately I cannot single out which item fixed it so I'll list both steps:

  1. I updated the Dell Inspiron BIOS from A7 to A12
  2. I went into Intel HD Graphics > Power > On Battery and saw that something had enabled Display Power Saving Technology again.

Now, on battery, I no longer suffer from the adaptive contrast/brightness issue!

EDIT: It appears Dell has issued BIOS updates for some laptops that will allow users to enable/disable what they're calling "dynamic brightness" (or similar) under Video in the BIOS settings screen. I've also seen it referenced as "CABC" in other forums.

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  • I have Lenovo Thinkpad and the step 2. solved this problem for me - Intel UHD graphics (in my case) had the stupid (sorry, intel) adaptive brightness enabled. Disabling it for all energy modes solved this problem for me.
    – andowero
    Mar 18, 2023 at 20:29
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I have a Acer Aspire E 15 laptop and I had this issue fixed by following what you said here, although I recently updated my Windows 10 machine and then the dynamic contrast issue reappeared. For anyone who has the same issue, this is what I did to make this work, here:

  1. Click on Start and type 'services'
  2. Right-click and choose 'Run as administrator'
  3. Click on 'Intel(R) HD Graphics Control Panel Service' from the list.
  4. In the General tab click on 'Startup type', select 'Disabled'
  5. Click OK, and restart the computer.
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Laptop screen changes contrast drastically when switching from a dark to light application

This worked for me.

Feels like very few people realize this. Feels like they have sneaked this "feature" in to extend battery life guessing people won't notice. And they are right. Most people don't. My computer does the same. It lowers the contrast of the image, not just brightness.

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    Hey @avatar1337! Welcome to superuser. Just a heads up that this would be better as a comment as it doesn't actually the question posted. Apr 24, 2018 at 11:16
  • Aha okay. I'll add the solution. =)
    – avatar1337
    Apr 24, 2018 at 11:21
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    What answer help you out? You can quote it to be a more appropriate answer
    – CaldeiraG
    Apr 24, 2018 at 12:40
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Most of the answers here seem to be for Intel graphics. For those on AMD graphics, the setting to look for is in the Radeon Software control panel, under Display, called "Vari-Bright".

Disabling this option (or setting it lower) will stop the auto-contrast/gamma adjustment.

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  • Yeah, it was an Intel system that was causing me the problem. Great info for AMD users as well, thanks! Jul 9, 2021 at 19:00

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