Monitor Darkness

[AndrewRandle]

I have a Dell Inspiron p233 that got a virus about a month ago so I had to format and reinstall windows and when I did The screen has been Dark. Its still usable but its hard to see things. I have the right video drivers installed so Im at a stand still. The keyboard has a contrast key and such but I cant find the right drivers for it. Any suggestions?

 

[Zorlod]

Are you absolutely sure its your PC? You could hook it to another PC to be sure. The only other suggestions i have are check the contrast and brightness settings on the monitor, and make sure you have the right video driver, but it seems you've already checked the video driver. You could also hook up a monitor you know is fairly bright to your pc that you reloaded windows on, if it appears much darker than it was the problem probably lies somewhere in your software or hardware settings. This is all pretty basic stuff, but without more detailed info such as video card, monitor, version of windows, and the display settings it's a little tough to give specific advice.

 

[AndrewRandle]

Its a Dell Inspiron Notebook, 64 megs of ram, 4 gig, p233. Window 98 upgrade. The video card and everything is the standard stuff.

 

[Sutek]

When you reinstalled, did you select a laptop display panel for your monitor? Or is it set as a "standard monitor type"

Alternatively, some video cards have utilities for setting brightness, contrast and gamma separately from the monitor. Is it possible that you HAD one such utility (possibly pre-installed), and that you no longer have it now you have reinstalled?

 

[AndrewRandle]

I installed windows 2000 on it and It found all the right drivers and stuff. I am able to adjust the contrast and brightness, but the screen is still really dark. I Hooked a regular monitor up to it and everything was perfectly clear. My guess is that the screen is going out or something else is not right.

 

[BBsAmazon]

Is your laptop still under warranty? If not, and something is wrong with the display, it can still be sent in as an Out of Warranty repair. Dell has their own technical support which can be accessed either by phone or email (of course support isn't offered if the original OS isn't installed). However, you may want to try installing the original OS and see if you still have the problem. There are a lot of drivers that haven't been written yet for Win2k. Dell also has a pretty awesome support site at support.dell.com. Email tech support can be accessed at

http://www.support.dell.com/us/en/emaildell/cc_opt01b.asp

and is free for the life of the system.

 

[Shad007]

Try pushing Fn-F5 a few times... maybe you are still looking at it in lcd/vga mode...try switching it to LCD mode only.

 

[TLH1310]

Have you checked the brightness settings in the BIOS? If I recall, there is a section that involves power management and screen brightness is in there.

T. L. Hicks

 

[zmanthao]

Don't know what the solution to your problem is, but I'm getting the feeling that helps here are basicly in the software realm. Simple things that you probably have already done or tried. If only we can understand the laptop by parts, it would be so much easier to fix. Like desktop, for example it is troubleshooted by hard drive, video card, nic card, motherboard, etc. Each of them have a distinct visual and sound error/trouble, thus you can fix it easily. Laptop have the same thing too, we just don't know to tie what visual or sound to where it is coming from or causing it. Finding the parts over the net for laptop is easy though. Sorry I can't help you, I have 4 broken laptops and trying to figure out what to do with them.

 

[cdogg]

If this problem started immediately after recloning your system, then one would think it was a software problem. On the other hand, an external monitor works fine. So we know the video card is working properly and has the correct drivers. Like Sutek mentioned, try different monitor types before you assume it's hardware.

I've troubleshooted many Dell Latitude notebooks in the past and have had to order many replacement LCD cables and/or LCD screens (even when the notebooks were less than 2 yrs old). I don't know how prone the problem is for Inspiron notebooks, but I wouldn't hesitate to consult a Dell tech to be on the safe side...

 

[Guest_imported]

It sounds like to me the power inverter went out (quite common) at the same time you rebuilt the OS. The power inverter supplies power to the floresnt light which lights the screen up from behind. If this system is still under warranty, this is an easy fix, if not, it probably will cost ~$80+ to get fixed. Unfortunately this is a common problem with LCD screens. Call Dell's support and they should be able to help you out.