Can't change screen brightness

[dannyboy75]

Hi all

I recently installed Vista Business on my VGN S5XP. At first the function key didn't work at all, but after installing Vaio Event Service, Utilities DLL, Shared Library and Video Shared Library, most of the functions (volume, mute, etc) now work.

However, the only thing I still can't adjust is the brightness. When I press Fn and one of the brightness function keys (F5/F6), the on-screen graphic appears at the bottom ( - 00000- + ) with the brightness shown as one less than the maximum level. However, I can't actually change it, and it also doesn't change when I remove the AC power supply.

Everything shows as installed correctly in device manager, including notebook control device and programmable I/O device. Have I missed something somewhere?

P.S. In case it's relevant my laptop's video card is a GeForce 6400 Go, and the driver I'm using is nvidia 182.05 from laptopvideo2go.com. However, I'm not sure if it's this driver or a Sony driver which controls brightness.

thanks

[Blencogo]

Hi dannyboy75 and welcome.

This problem is very common on many Vaio models when you change the originally installed operating system.

The problem occurs when Sony have not released a dedicated set of Utilities for the installed operating system.

It happens when a Vista Vaio is downgraded to to XP and Sony do not support XP and have not written the dedicated Utilities. Similarly, it happens when an XP Vaio is upgraded to Vista without a dedicated set of Utilities.

Fixes have been published here for some models but I do not recall seeing a fix for a S-Series running Vista on Club Vaio.

Have a read here though - I think some people have managed to get it working: -

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=104347&page=6

Seems to be a mixture of utilities and video driver.

[dannyboy75]

thank you Blencogo, I'll give the suggestions in that link a try

[littlebucko]

hi dannyboy75
have you tryed going into your power settings
9/10 time you can change the brightness on those and set them to auto change when its unplugged or plugged in

[nio_7]

Ok, First of all, does your laptop has any "unknown device" in your Device manager?
If yes, you'll need the attached driver to install to this device (unzip it in a folder and then install it on this unknown device manually via device manager).

The trick now is to have the appropriate Driver for your graphics Card. It has to be a specific driver that is compatible with changing brightness.
On my own laptop VGN-FE31H the brightness control didn't work (it behaved exactly as you describe) unless i installed the graphics card driver that was provided from Vaio support page for my laptop model.
In you case i see that there is no graphics card driver available for vista so you have to try different versions from the net and see if you're lucky.

You can also try and send a request for the appropriate video driver to Vaio support Stuff and see if you get any answer.