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Question

Laptop screen is too "light"

Apr 16, 2020 2:13PM PDT

I've had this laptop for several months. Now, suddenly, the colors on the screen are too light. By this I mean that black looks dark grey, and light grey looks white (anything #E5E5E5 or brighter is indistinguishable from #FFFFFF). For example, in Chrome I can't tell which tab is currently open, and in Gmail the read emails aren't darkened. It's like the value of each color was increased by 10.

This problem started suddenly a couple of days ago. It's not a browser issue; the same thing happens when I test it in my image editing programs. It's not the brightness either. Even with minimum brightness, light grey and white are indistinguishable. Turning the laptop off and back on also doesn't help. When I search around for this issue, I get some results saying it could be caused by an HDMI connection, but I haven't connected the laptop to an HDMI cable in a long time.

A bunch of keys had gotten accidentally pressed a bit before this started, which I'm guessing caused some display setting to change, but I can't figure out what. Does anyone know what settings would cause this? Or could something else be causing it?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Try the usual.
Apr 16, 2020 2:51PM PDT

System Restore to when it worked.

What about all the usual resets in the display control panels?

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Nope
Apr 17, 2020 10:08AM PDT

I tried restoring 2 days ago before the last Windows update, but I guess it wasn't far enough. I don't have any restore points before that. It seems like this should be easy to fix since it was easy to accidentally activate, but I have no idea what it is. All of the display settings that I can find are at default and messing with them isn't helping. I thought the brightness and contrast settings in the Intel graphics control panel might help but they didn't.

The problem disappears when I restart in Safe Mode, so it's not a hardware problem or anything.

Post was last edited on April 17, 2020 10:39 AM PDT

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Since you can't fix it with controls.
Apr 17, 2020 10:54AM PDT

Try installing drivers from the MAKER. NO, do not use Windows Update or driver update apps.

I'd also test this with any other OS. I boot Linux for such tests to sniff out if it's a hardware issue.

If the Linux test is fine (we don't learn Linux) then for those that can't sort it out (I'm not there to see all your options on control panels and there is no standard in this area of Windows) then a factory reset is next. Be sure to save what you can't lose before that step.

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Answer
Off the wall answer . . .
Apr 17, 2020 2:16PM PDT

On my high end Lenovo it can look like that until I push the sereen back at a deeper angle.

I assume there are no brightness or contrast control keys?

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Answer
fn keys
Apr 17, 2020 2:47PM PDT

most likely it is one of your fn keys. do you have any with a sun or a monitor shape on any of your keys? it is going to be one of them.

or check and see if you have a nvida control panel installed. you might be able to fix the issue through it.

finally, does your laptop have a reading mode for ebooks? it dulls the screen similar to what you are describing.

Post was last edited on April 17, 2020 3:00 PM PDT

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Answer
Did it the hard way
Apr 17, 2020 3:21PM PDT

I tried all of your suggestions, but none of them were it. I have no idea why this setting is so hard to find; maybe it's actually just a persistent glitch. Oh well. I ended up using "Reset this PC", which fixed it. Had to reinstall everything, but kept my files at least. Thanks!

Post was last edited on April 17, 2020 3:22 PM PDT