Thinkpads Forum

Well, I don't know how I did it, but some how I messed up the "green bars" onscreen display. It's a t60p 2623 DDU, and yesterday the little green bars on the bottom of the screen stopped appearing. I mean the ones that come on to show how bright the screen is, or how loud the volume is.

I have tried every display option I could find, to no avail. I also tried using System Restore to reset the setting to a couple of day ago, but that didn't make the "green bar display" come back either.

Anyone know how to turn that display back on?

Thanks

Have you tried re-installing the System Interface Driver and/or the Hotkey driver?

Start/Programs/ThinkVantage/Thinkpad Configuration/Display/On Screen Display (With XP, May not work with Vista).

If you're comfortable with regedit, check your registry for the entries below. Also, a search of this forum will yield several results for this same problem and a tip as to how not to cripple this function in the future.

First step:
•Open up the registry editor by hitting Windows Key + R and typing regedit
•Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
•Click on Software
•Click on IBM
•Click on TPHOTKEY
•Choose OnScreenDisplay
•Double Click the Size value
•Change the hex key to the following: 0000 14 1E 28 14
•Hit Okay, close Regedit and reboot your machine.

If that doesn't do it, check the following values. Good luck.

Key Name: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IBM\TPHOTKEY\OnScreenDisplay
Class Name: <NO CLASS>
Last Write Time: 1/30/2009 - 10:12 AM
Value 0
Name: FadeoutTime
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 0x3e8

Value 1
Name: Color
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 0xff0000

Value 2
Name: CustomColors
Type: REG_BINARY
Data:
00000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................


Value 3
Name: Size
Type: REG_BINARY
Data:
00000000 14 1e 28 14 ..(.

Value 4
Name: Font
Type: REG_SZ
Data: Tahoma

Value 5
Name: Enable
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 0x1

O.k., I don't have the programs mentioned. (I assume (for future use) I can download them from the Lenovo website, right?) I searched the forum and yup, a number of other people have had the exact same problem.

So I opened regedit. Every single value, including enable, had been set to 0. Changed the settings as instructed and it came back. (I set it to use red.) Since it's a registry entry, I don't understand why using System Restore didn't fix it for me. It should've. Hmmm...

O.k., let me ask a related one. When I switch to battery power, the screen dims, as is normal. I have looked through every power management setting, even in BIOS, to try and get it to stay fully bright on batteries. (I am less impressed with IPS than everyone else, so a dim IPS screen is way too low contrast for my needs.) Does anyone know the setting to keep the screen fully bright on battery power?

Go to Catalyst Control Center and look for/at POWERPLAY options.

John

Joseph-N wrote:O.k., let me ask a related one. When I switch to battery power, the screen dims, as is normal. I have looked through every power management setting, even in BIOS, to try and get it to stay fully bright on batteries. (I am less impressed with IPS than everyone else, so a dim IPS screen is way too low contrast for my needs.) Does anyone know the setting to keep the screen fully bright on battery power?

There are 3 areas that I have found to control brightness as this always bugs me and with the T60 screen not being that bright to begin I want it as bright as possible always. Here are the 3 areas I found:
- BIOS
- OS
- Power Manager

NOTE: I don't use the crappy^H^H^H^H^H^H Catalyst Control Center so I can't speak as to how it plays into brightness or which one overrides/takes precedence.

I found that the BIOS setting would drop brightness when on battery despite anything in software I set. I kept hitting Fn Home to brighten and it was as bright as it could go yet it was still darker than it was on power. It was the BIOS that was dropping it in brightness. Make sure you check and double check this to ensure it is set appropriately.

Otherwise depending on the OS play with the OS and Power Manager settings. In XP and Vista it seems that Power Manager overrides the OS but for now, in Win7 it seems they conflict and it uses the least common denominator method. I haven't tried the new beta power manager yet as I am hoping that will go back to being the definitive brightness control.

I don't pretend to be an expert on the madness but the above is just what I have observed and hopefully it will help,
Chris