[SOLVED] Lost on-screen brightness notification

[SurrealMustard]

Volume control and all other on-screen notifications still show up. I don't remember exactly when brightness stopped showing up on-screen or what could have caused it. The latest driver updates today for power and hotkey integration were installed today, but there is no change. Any ideas?

FWIW, I'm using Windows 7 x64 on an X200 tablet.

SOLUTION BELOW

[Hans Gruber]

My OSD display is screwed up on a few of my T410 series. I checked my programs tab and the OSD display program is still installed. I am running Bios 1.45. The T410s models have no OSD issues.

OP, I assume you are referring to your OSD as well?

[USSS]

To both posters, try re-installing your Hotkey Features Integration software for your respective machine types. This should restore your On Screen Display (OSD) notifier. A reboot is usually resquired.

[Hans Gruber]

I will give it a shot and report back my findings.

[hhhd1]

Sorry if this looks like advertising, but you can use a 3rd party utility to manage brightness, like this tool i created, and it displays brightness settings on screen whenever brightness change.

http://www.codeground.net/apps/brightne ... r-windows/

[SurrealMustard]

To both posters, try re-installing your Hotkey Features Integration software for your respective machine types. This should restore your On Screen Display (OSD) notifier. A reboot is usually resquired.

Tried this, but no dice. Even tried the older version, but it's always the same.

My OSD display is screwed up on a few of my T410 series. I checked my programs tab and the OSD display program is still installed. I am running Bios 1.45. The T410s models have no OSD issues.

OP, I assume you are referring to your OSD as well?

Yes. Just the indicator for the brightness though, everything else works fine.

[shawross]

Yes you guys are not alone. The OSD for brightness on my X301 stopped working. I thought mine might have been caused by some Windows 7 updates but I can't be completely sure.
Nevertheless I don't really miss it now because I just go with how the screen looks. The Volume OSD still works and this is more important IMO.

[SurrealMustard]

Yes you guys are not alone. The OSD for brightness on my X301 stopped working. I thought mine might have been caused by some Windows 7 updates but I can't be completely sure.
Nevertheless I don't really miss it now because I just go with how the screen looks. The Volume OSD still works and this is more important IMO.

Hmmm, I never thought about that. Do you remember about how long ago it stopped working? Have you been keeping up with all of the updates? Normally, I wouldn't mind the brightness level either, but this thing is just really buggy for some reason with the brightness settings in my power plan constantly changing behind my back. The nice thing about the on-screen indicator was that it would show up anytime anything changed the brightness, so I'd at least know right away, but now I have to open the control panel every time I want to see where it is set.

[shawross]

About 3 months ago I updated my GMA 4500MHD software directly from the Intel website and everything was going fine for my X301.
Then I was doing some updates and saw an update from Microsoft for the Intel Display chip but it was only less than 20 Mb as I remember.
So I installed it and I think this is where I lost the OSD. I know I could remove that update but other than the OSD everything is great.
I nearly always install hardware updates from MS (yeh I know) .
I set my brightness setting to 5 / 15 for the X301 and on startup I was finding the setting initially changing to 10 / 15.
Going into the Lenovo Power manager and adjusting display brightness for all power options to 5 / 15 seems to have fixed this problem though.
Maybe there is a bit of Ying and Yang between software for Microsoft and software for Lenovo and Intel.

[SurrealMustard]

About 3 months ago I updated my GMA 4500MHD software directly from the Intel website and everything was going fine for my X301.
Then I was doing some updates and saw an update from Microsoft for the Intel Display chip but it was only less than 20 Mb as I remember.
So I installed it and I think this is where I lost the OSD. I know I could remove that update but other than the OSD everything is great.
I nearly always install hardware updates from MS (yeh I know) .
I set my brightness setting to 5 / 15 for the X301 and on startup I was finding the setting initially changing to 10 / 15.
Going into the Lenovo Power manager and adjusting display brightness for all power options to 5 / 15 seems to have fixed this problem though.
Maybe there is a bit of Ying and Yang between software for Microsoft and software for Lenovo and Intel.

You might just be onto something here! Come to think of it, I did upgrade the Intel graphics driver with the one from Intel's website back in March when I was troubleshooting graphical bugs in Pale Moon. Since the update didn't seem to provide any noticeable improvement, maybe I'll try rolling it back to see if it makes any difference. For the record, while I did see the one provided in Windows Update, I never accepted it.

UPDATE: Ah ha! That driver was indeed the cause of the problem. After reinstalling the latest Lenovo-issued driver, the on-screen notifications for brightness immediately returned.

[USSS]

Out of curiosity, I went back and reviewed the entries in my system maintenance log for my x230 Tablet pertaining to the Intel graphics driver. Sure enough, I had encountered a similar problem with the OSD after installing a later, generic Intel graphics driver.

In fact, the Intel Driver Update Utility separately warned that, "A customized computer manufacturer [graphics] driver is installed on your computer. The Intel Driver Update Utility is not able to update the driver. Installing a generic Intel driver instead of the customized computer manufacturer [graphics] driver may cause technical issues. Contact your computer manufacturer for the latest driver for your computer."

Similarly, there is a later Bluetooth driver recommended by several third-party driver-update utilities. I had also installed that newer driver and it, too, caused problems. Reinstalling the earlier Bluetooth driver recommended by Lenovo fixed the problem.

Bottom line: it is generally best to stick with the drivers recommended by Lenovo, even if they are not the latest drivers otherwise available.