Help PC desktop screen too dark

[Deleted member 1465]

Well I can't find any realistic advice anywhere else, so you never know, there are some techies on here so...

My PC desktop monitor is darker than it should be. And yes, obviously, I've adjusted the monitor settings. I've also tried another two monitors, with the same effect.

I'm on windows 10 (fresh install), a custom build with an AMD Radeon R9 200 / HD 7900 Series GPU, updated to the latest drivers.

It's odd. The colours seem as if the levels have been adjusted to make things muddier, but none of the windows settings or monitor settings reflect this. There is also no adaptive colour/brightness so it's not that.

It first started after my screen went dark during a game though the sound was still fine. Had to force quit. This has only happened once.
Then I noticed the colour/brightness change in game and also in Windows. Also, the windows interface give a little flicker to black sometimes when I perform any operation. Blink and you miss it.
Today I was playing the original Witcher and occasionally the screen would darken appreciably. I'd have to alt tab to Windows and the screen would gradually lighten. Then it would happen again in game.

I've opened up the case and dusted carefully (wasn't too bad) and used GPU-Z, FRAPS, Heaven Benchmark and Novabench to test my card. Temperature, performance and benchmark all seem fine. Also, no in game lagg, stuttering, colour or glitches in game or video playback.

I'm contemplating a thorough removal of the drivers and a rollback to an earlier version to test that first. Otherwise, all I can think of is that the graphics card is on its way out (which is odd because it's performing fine in every other regard) or there is a power supply issue to the card.

Any bright (lol) ideas?

 

[grungeCat]

That's weird. Maybe you have an energy-saving option turned on either monitor or graphic card settings? You can also open up BIOS settings and turn off every 'cool & quiet' stuff and see if it reslut in any changes. You can also download this program (link) and perform a full scan with administrator privileges. You'll get two output files : ''addition.txt' and 'FRST.txt'. You have to upload them here so I can see if you have some format-resistant malware.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Maybe you have an energy-saving option turned on either monitor or graphic card settings?

Forgot to mention i checked that and no. Now you are making me think, I'll check again.

You can also open up BIOS settings and turn off every 'cool & quiet' stuff and see if it reslut in any changes.

Same there.

I shall look at farbar tomorrow hopefully, thanks. TBH I've never heard of format-resistant malware. Everything else is zipping along fine.

 

[grungeCat]

O

Forgot to mention i checked that and no. Now you are making me think, I'll check again.

Same there.

I shall look at farbar tomorrow hopefully, thanks. TBH I've never heard of format-resistant malware. Everything else is zipping along fine.

Well, if you format your drive then there's a very small chance malware will survive. The problem is that malware can spread to other partitions or devices with storage. If you have partitions other than the Windows one there's a chance it might get re-infected.

 

[Caspers]

I have exactly the same issue. I have bootcamp (download Windows to Mac) and have noticed Windows10 is significantly darker, nearly a quarter darker. I rarely have my Mac at full brightness, but the Windows 10 is always at full brightness, but it's never enough. I don't know why it's so dark? Glad to know I'm not alone

 

[Deleted member 1465]

O

Well, if you format your drive then there's a very small chance malware will survive. The problem is that malware can spread to other partitions or devices with storage. If you have partitions other than the Windows one there's a chance it might get re-infected.

I do actually have my old version of win7 on my old ssd. I've been meaning to format it and put a Linux distro on it. My main ssd is a new one with win10 on it.

I have exactly the same issue. I have bootcamp (download Windows to Mac) and have noticed Windows10 is significantly darker, nearly a quarter darker. I rarely have my Mac at full brightness, but the Windows 10 is always at full brightness, but it's never enough. I don't know why it's so dark? Glad to know I'm not alone

It's good to know I'm not alone too!
Mmm maybe I could boot to win7 and see if it's win 10 being a pain.

 

[Caspers]

I do actually have my old version of win7 on my old ssd. I've been meaning to format it and put a Linux distro on it. My main ssd is a new one with win10 on it.

It's good to know I'm not alone too!
Mmm maybe I could boot to win7 and see if it's win 10 being a pain.

Let me know if it works! It would be a bit annoying having to scrap 10 when I paid for it, but if it works then it's worth it

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Well I wouldn't continue to use win 7 as it's not supported anymore. I've just been being lazy and not formatted the old drive yet as I'm not booting to it.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Meant to look at this today. Got distracted by leaves, dogs, Doctor Who and The Stand. Maybe tomorrow.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

That's weird. Maybe you have an energy-saving option turned on either monitor or graphic card settings? You can also open up BIOS settings and turn off every 'cool & quiet' stuff and see if it reslut in any changes. You can also download this program (link) and perform a full scan with administrator privileges. You'll get two output files : ''addition.txt' and 'FRST.txt'. You have to upload them here so I can see if you have some format-resistant malware.

Scan run. I'm going to PM you the txt files rather than post in open forum.

I've been playing with every display tweak I can but to no avail. It's really hard to explain; the settings are actually exactly as they should be for me. The brightness/contrast, colour, gamma, hue, warmth...all of it as at it's best setting, the screen just feels oddly 'shadowed' or 'muddy.'
I used to work in graphic design and would be quite picky about my colour profiles and output across PostScript devices. I'm failing to find the language to accurately describe the issue I'm having.

 

[grungeCat]

Scan run. I'm going to PM you the txt files rather than post in open forum.

I've been playing with every display tweak I can but to no avail. It's really hard to explain; the settings are actually exactly as they should be for me. The brightness/contrast, colour, gamma, hue, warmth...all of it as at it's best setting, the screen just feels oddly 'shadowed' or 'muddy.'
I used to work in graphic design and would be quite picky about my colour profiles and output across PostScript devices. I'm failing to find the language to accurately describe the issue I'm having.

Ok, I have analysed your logs and ... wow. Your computer is absolutely free of any malware, I didn't find even common misconfiguration users often do. I don't need to make any fixlist, congratulations, you are a very prudent computer user. Sorry, I can't help you further with your problem. It's not a big thing but I would advise you to uninstall BitDefender Free - Malwarebytes is good enough, besides keeping more than 2 antiviruses don't make you more secure but instead slows down the computer unnecessarily.

Besides I have to point out one thing. You have asked me to send you script privately. That's wrong! What if I tried to make a script to take control over your computer? It is hard but possible to make a backdoor via fixlist! Additionally I could use social engineering to convice you to run worse things. All the repair process must be carried out in public. It's the only way to ensure that I won't scam you. Today's lesson to you folks : don't you ever run any script or program somebody has sent you privately. It might sound obvious but hackers have their own ways to dull your vigilance. Keep it in mind!

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Thanks for your efforts.
Yes, I read the logs and couldn't find anything amiss either.

Malwarebytes seems to work well in conjunction with Bitdefender as far as I can tell, though yes I'm aware to run only one AV. I did my research there and I don't think there is a conflict between those two bits of software, though I'm happy to take advice if you believe otherwise.
I used to use far more security software on older versions of Windoze, but now I use the in-built firewall rather than a third party suite and I was even tempted to stay with Windows Defender. Historically, it's been shit, but with Windows 10 it seems to have a better detection rate.
I went with Bitdefender because it's free, has a high detection rate and a minimal impact on the system. It has no bells and whistles, barely any settings, just does the job. I used to like to tweak but now I can't be bothered.
I also do a periodic scan with Eset online. It's pretty thorough and can be run in addition to any on-board AV. It's good at finding PUPs but can give false positives so it's best not to clean as you scan.

I changed my user profile name to something else in those logs and whilst I wanted to send you the logs in private, I'm glad you responded in open forum. I would not have run anything someone sent me in private, don't worry. And I do my own private research on anything I'm advised. I even downloaded Farbar from majorgeeks, because they have never steered me wrong. So, yes, I was already thinking along the lines of your advice. That you posted such advice speaks highly of your integrity.

Thank you once again. Your time and effort is mucho appreciated.

Back to the drawing board.

I'm going to try rolling back the drivers with DDU then installing older drivers from AMD to see if that solves anything. I don't think it will work. I think I have an issue with power supply to the graphics card. I don't think there is any reasonable way to test that without swapping out the power supply or the card itself. Mmmm...maybe I shall first check the cables...

 

[Finis Autem Spero]

Considering that you seem to have tested everything on the computer side of things, it sounds like the your screen could be the problem. Have you tested it with another source?

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Considering that you seem to have tested everything on the computer side of things, it sounds like the your screen could be the problem. Have you tested it with another source?

Yes, with two other screens. It was my first move, assuming a faulty back light. No luck. Thanks for the suggestion though, it's all too easy to miss the simple things sometimes. Last time I was hassling my ISP about my connection it turned out to me a bad micro-filter.
EDIT: LOL I found out yesterday that the reason my sound is so crap is that my speakers were plugged into my onboard sound chip instead of my actual Creative sound card.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Okay, this is weird.

The damn screen appears to be behaving as if it's using adaptive brightness. If the lights are high, the screen is brighter, if the lights are dimmed, it's darker.
The COG.com launcher results in a drastic screen dimming. It'as got a black background. If I minimise it, the screen brightens accordingly.

Simple? Nah, never with me...

My PC doesn't appear to have adaptive brightness. There are no Win10 settings for it, no settings on the monitor and no settings in the GPU software.

I tried the advanced power settings/display/ but there is no option for adaptive brightness.

I tried to disable the sensor monitoring service in services.msc but that made no difference.

How is my screen adapting to ambient light levels when their are no such options in the software because my hardware lacks that capability?

It's sorcery!