MacBook :: Brightness On Screen Lowest Setting / Backlight
May 8, 2010
A month or so ago, the backlight randomly went out on our MacBook. If you look very closely you can see the screen, but it's like you've got the brightness on its lowest setting. The backlight comes on as normal when you turn on the computer, or wake it from sleep, but goes out after about 2 minutes. Other than not being able to see what's going on, the computer works fine. I took it to the Apple Store, who said they'd have to replace something at a cost of ?75, which was fine. Just over a week later, they called and said that hadn't worked, and that it was actually the logic board that needed replacing, at a cost of ?385, more than the value of the computer. We decided it wasn't worth it.
Yesterday however, I took it to a friends and connected it to his monitor, and even though the screen was dark on the MacBook, it came up fine on the monitor. To me, it seems strange that it's a logic board issue when it works fine with an external display.
I have a macbook and a screen plugget to it. Now I use just the new screen and don't use the macbook one. But every time I turn the mac on the macbook screen turns on, and I have to decrease the brightness manually every time. (cause it's a waste of energy to keep it on if I don't use it). So I'd like to know to set the screen brightness to 0 by default, so I don't have to turn the brightness down every time.
I have been scanning through the forum looking for a solution, but have yet to find one that works:
Here is the situation:Macbook pro early 2011, lastest update of lion, My keyboard backlight is abnormally dim when set on the max setting. When comparing my current illumination to a properly working keyboard, which i had just a few days ago, the current brightness would be about a level two - three on the illumination scale.
The associated SMC functions appear to be working properly, besides the keyboard illumination.
Oddly: The light momentarily starting working yesterday and went back to full brightness for about an hour, then regressed backed to the problem of being abnormally dim.
What I have done to troubleshoot:Resetted SMC several timesseveral trials of going to a dark roomclicking and unclicking of the "automatic illumination" ticklight does not work Is this a problem with Lion? as there are several characteristically similar senarios involving the keyboard backlight and lion?
The brightness goes up when you plug in your MBA, but then over time it just goes up and up. I honestly like my brightness pretty low (rarely more than half, typically at 3-5 notches), but it just keeps on going up and up. I almost never set it above half, but multiple times a day, I notice that it looks pretty high and it's at like 3/4 so I put it it down to about 1/3, but after a while, it's just up again.
Anyone else notice this? What is it, why does it do this? How can I fix it? I don't mind not having auto-brightness (even though I loved it), as long as my screen doesn't keep going up.
So I installed Vista 64 bit on my Macbook Pro (Santa Rosa), I installed most of the drivers I can find, but I cant get the screen brightness buttons to work (F1 and F2)
Right now I'm in a dark room and it's really hurting my eyes because of the brightness. Is there an app or something that can make the screen get even dimmer/brighter?
I have dual ACD's. How do I make it so that both screens have the same brightness? If I adjust the brightness in the display settings it adjusts the main screen, but then not the other one. How do I make them the same?
Just got the new MacBook Pro Retina, and I love it except for the fact that the overall brightness was decreased by 20-25%. A couple reviews talk about this noticeable reduction in brightness [URL], and I assume it has to do with the power consumption of the retina display.That said, I've always thought the highest brightness in previous generation MacBooks was barely bright enough as it was, and now with this reduction in default brightness, I'm finding it hard to use. I know I may be in the minority thinking this, but I may have to return the machine if I can't find a workaround. Is it possible to increase brightness beyond the default setting? Is there a command line setting that I can adjust? I'm well-aware of the battery trade-off this will have, but I don't care. I have to be able to see the screen.Â
Info: MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
My wife has an iMac (I don't know any other way to identify it e.g. model number), and she has this 3rd party calibration software that I'm trying to use. I am not used to a Mac, and I cannot find the display settings for the monitor. There are no buttons on the monitor, and when I go to preferences, I can only find the brightness control. I've googled this and cannot find a clear, simple answer. I have used every version of Windows (currently on 8.1 on my PC) and it's easy for me on that platform. I suppose it's just that I don't really know how to navigate Mac OS.
My Air's screen is slightly darker at the bottom (only on a few millimeters, but still). It only happens on a white/light background though (I don't have my dock at the bottom). In comparison, the screen of my MacBook has a very uniform backlight. Does anybody else have this issue?
I kept my macbook (late 2008) turned on overnight on lowest brightness and when I tried turning the brightness back on this morning, the backlight flashed on for less than a second and then turned off again. Somehow I managed to get it to work, but whenever I move my macbook even slightly the problem reoccurs. I've done some research on my problem and I suspect that it's hardware related (maybe the inverter or the inverter cable?), but maybe the LCD itself is broken? Does anyone else have any experience with this?
Has anyone noticed a very slight flicker on their new MBPs? I have a new 13" and, every so often, the screen brightness dims and then brightens very quickly (happens in less than a second).The option for auto-adjusting the screen brightness is off so it's not that particular function.It's most noticeable on all-white backgrounds both on AC and battery power. Hard drive access doesn't seem to coincide with the dimming.
lately, my mba has been behaving a little weirdly. its screen would suddenly become a little dimmer when the brightness in the room has not changed a bit. after a long while(15 min?), it'll turn brighter again by itself, and again without any change in the lighting of the room. the change is not big but obviously. any idea? can it be some software? or setting? or a defective light sensor?
I read on the internet that this is probably caused by lightbult or inverter board, but that information was on macbook or macbook pro, i couldn't find any information if its the same issue with macbook airs.. Has somebody had similar situation? How have you solved this issue?
I have a 2008 White body model Macbook with 2 gigs of ram and 2.1 core duo processor. My problem is that the screen won't turn on...when I start up my computer it lights up for a second, but turns off before the apple sign shows up. If I look really close I can see everything. Oddly enough, if I press the brightness button so to decrease the brightness to the very last bar and then hit the f2 button to turn up the brightness by one, the light will turn on for a few seconds, if i continually go back and forth, I can sort of use it enough to do something with it (thank god because I had all my work for school on it). I have included a link with this thread so you can see what I mean.
I have had my Macbook for almost three years now, and for the last month, the backlight for my screen has gone off. However, when I put the brightness down to 0 when the light is off, and put it up by 1 it sometimes turns on for a couple minutes/seconds/hours. Any help? By the way, I am using Boot Camp, I do not know if this happens on my Mac Side, because it comes up with a "stop" sign when I try to boot it up.
I own a macbook pro unibody A1286. I spilled some soda on it and I followed everything that you would do when a liquid spill happens. After a few days I turned on the macbook pro and I hear the charm and can see the screen with light on it. The back light had gone out on the unit. At first I thought It would be the screen, so I ordered a new screen and tried it out. With the new screen it is the same, the back light for the lcd wont turn on. Everything else on the macbook pro is functional except for the back light.
I even own a mini display port to HDMI adapter and hooked that up to my TV and it worked perfectly. The isight camera works, all the ports work, speakers work, optical drive works. Just the Back light on the LCD does not.
I've installed OSX successfully many times but this one, with a new WD disk gives me trouble. After the gray screen is gone and the installation menu starts, the back-light turns off and I can't do anything about it. Any idea why that happens and how I can deal with it? I am working on a Mid 2009 13" Macbook pro with 2.26ghz and 8GB of RAM.
I've had my new 13" MBP for about a month now and I am noticing what looks like backlight bleeding spots at the bottom of my screen. It is most noticeable on the bottom left and appear blue-ish on a black screen at maximum brightness. It is getting irritating when I am watching movies at night. I have the 9CBD screen. Others have said they have no problems with this screen model. So is this normal or is it a defect? If it is a defect, what can I do to fix this? My 14 day grace period is over, so I'm assuming an easy exchange at the Apple Store is out of the question?
i dropped my macbook. The screen was not responding any more but the backlight was still working. Now, i have opened up my macbook, because my insurance company gave me a new one. There is nothing i can see that is changed. So what is the problem here? I am not waiting to bring it to the store with a respond: It will cost you a 1000 dollar.
I have just replaced the display panel in my MacBook Pro (A1260) and now it is behaving oddly at startup. The backlight lights up normally until the boot process gets to the Login screen, at that point the LEDs shut off. I can see the images on the display, (the LCD seems OK,) the only issue is that the LEDs are turning off.
Here's what I've tried: 1) If I boot in Target mode, the screen stays lit. (As expected.) 2) If I reset PRAM, the lamp behaves normally, staying on through that session. If I restart, the lamp-off- condition returns. 3) I have reset the SMC per instructions here, [URL]. No change, LEDs shut off.
Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch 2.4/2.2 GHz), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
It seems my MBA has developed some issues with the LCD, there is a noticeable dark patch on the bottom of the screen and it is really bugging me, normally little things like these I can get over with but seeing how much I paid for this laptop it is very disconcerting. Oh and also, when the screen is off and viewed under a sun/bright light, you can see waves / "ripples" of the LCD, is that supposed to be normal? Just wondering if Applecare will "care" about this issue.
this is my first time posting,so my bad if i do anything wrong.
My backlight doesn't work when i tilt the screen less than 90 degrees. is there anything i can do besides take it to the apple store? I'd rather my dad didn't find out
I just noticed that on a black background, my 17" i7 MacBook Pro has two areas in the lower middle area of the screen, where the backlight is too bright compared to the rest of the screen. It is very noticeable on a black background and grey.. Is anyone else having this problem?
Other things I noticed: - there was dust on the plastic cover that you take off the case when you use it for the first time - the aluminium enclosure was slightly dirty, could be rubbed off though.. - there are two minor 'impurities' in the aluminium (?!).. two tiny grey spots/blemishes basically - there were a few minor scratches on the aluminium casing. - the apple logo at the back glows in a much warmer (yellow-ish) colour than the previous generation mbp (?!) - the screen seems not as bright as the previous generation - the keyboard backlight seems not as bright as the previous generation
My 2009 MBP would have problems shutting down or restarting. On a shutdown, it would appear to off, black screen and no lights, but if you tried pressing the power button nothing happened. I had to hold the power button to turn it completely, then press it again to startup.Restarts had the same behaviour, it would get to a black screen and I would have to hold the power button and then press it again to startup.I ended up taking this MBP back for another problem, and they replaced it with a 2011 MBP (since I had recurring logic board that failed a few times).Anyway, I swapped the SSD from my old mac into the new one, and I have the exact same behaviour!!Seems to be some corrupt settings or something. So I booted from a Mac installation disc, wiped my hard drive and reinstalled the OS, then I restored from Time Machine, and unticked the option to restore settings.I want to also add, that my backlit keyboard isn't working either.I tried resetting the SMC, but the power light on my charger didn't cycle orange/green, so I'm not sure if it worked. I tried multiple time, following Apple instructions.I also reset the PRAM, which did work.
Info: MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3), 16GB RAM, OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240
Note: These are games tested on a MacBook Air with the following specs: 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 Integrated Ram, 256MB Shared nVidia GeForce 9400M Video Card, Windows Vista SP2 Business x86. This DOES NOT include the Rev. A (1.6GHz/1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR2 Integrated Ram, 144MB Shared Intel X3100 Video Card) models. Rating scale: 1-5 (FPS Based off lowest possible graphics settings)
1 - Poor/Won't Run. (>10 FPS) 2 - Runs but poorly (10-15 FPS) 3 - Playable (16-25 FPS) 4 - Very Playable (25-40 FPS) 5 - Go crazy (40+ FPS)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 5 Call of Duty 5: World at War - 3 Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2 - 5 Counter Strike: Source - 5 Day of Defeat: Source - 5 Colin McRae: DiRT2 - 4 Grand Theft Auto 4 - 2 Left 4 Dead - 4 Left 4 Dead 2 - 4 MotoGP 2008 - 4 Need for Speed Undercover - 5 Sid Meier's Civilization 4 (All expansions) - 5 Sins of a Solar Empire (Includes Entrenchment Expansion) - 5 Star Trek DAC - 3 Star Wars Empires at War - 4 Test Drive Unlimited - 4 X3 Terran Conflict - 4
