Can't adjust display brightness

I have a Toshiba Satellite L305-S5908 laptop with a Mobile Intel(R) 45 Express Chipset Family (Microsoft Corporation - Prerelease WDDM 1.1) graphics card. When trying to adjust display brightness, nothing happens. Anyone else experiencing the same problem?

Well, not the EXACT same, but very similar.
Using a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop, with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400, Intel 945GM chipset (Centrino Duo). I can adjust my brightness from a fresh boot, but somewhere in the mix of using my computer, the screen goes dim and stays that way. I have my power options set to high performance (max brightness, don't dim, etc) when plugged in, but when I sleep/hibernate and unplug (carrying it to class) I can no longer adjust the brightness. VERY ANNOYING >

If you've come up with anything since you posted, please let anyone know because this (along with a few other bugs) almost makes me want to go back to XP

I have the exact same problem beadleda. I have to restart my computer to get the display to work correctly. As you said very annoying.

Have you found a solution for this?

Thanks

I would suggest update your chipset driver with this utility:

http://www.intel.com/support/chipset.../CS-009275.htm

Have you gone to the manufacturers web site for updated video driver rather than using the WDDM drivers.

I just had the exact same brightness problem and I couldn't find the solution on here...
For some reason the maximum brightness level gets set to a very low level in the bios.
Here's instructions on how to fix it:
Windows 7 ? Display Brightness Problem Phil’s Technical Musings

I'm using a Dell Vostro 2510, and just installed Windows 7 Ultimate.

I managed to install Dell's Quickset app, all keyboard functions work now, except the brightness... it will show the little progress bar but the brightness itself doesn't change.

My BIOS doesn't allow me to change any settings regarding brightness, I can't find it anywhere!

In the Boot tab of the BIOS I only get a list of: Hard Disk, CD Rom, USB and some other devices, but nothing related to brightness, thus, this solution doesn't work for me, screen is about 75% bright, its bearable, but not for my taste, and I can't dim it all the way down using Power Saver plan or put it all the way up in High performance plan because the control won't show on Power Plan settings (not even in advanced power settings).

The brightness control worked when I had Vista installed.

I'm still looking for a solution :S

Edit: I'm going to download the chipset drivers from the Intel website and also the win7 nVidia drivers for the GeForce 8400M. I hope that resolves the issue

Edit #2: Finally, it worked, I installed the drivers for the nVidia GeForce 8400M and also the latest Chipset drivers from Intel 900 series. I'm so happy!

i have same problem on my hp probook 4515s: amd sempron si-42 ATI radeon HD 3200 win7 ultimate 64bit. Cant acceses bios and drivers are dowloaded hp:s site from win 7 drivers and still brightness stays very low. would realy like to get fix to this

Hello guys.
Have a t400 and just installed windows 7. Had exactly the same brightness (or lack) as discussed above. According to Microsoft then the brightness should be controllable under the Power option panel (sliding bar) but this was not visual when I tried it out the first time. In addition my hotkeys for brightness control sort of black out as well. Tried the advise with bios modification described by Phil's technical musings (Windows 7 ? Display Brightness Problem Phil’s Technical Musings) but in vain.
Just for the fun of it I went back to power options and click on the "change plan settings" for power saver, went in and altered the plugged in settings (adjust plan brightness etc) and low and behold, when i exited the brightness slide appeared at the bottom of the screen as described by Microsoft. In addition my hotkeys started to work.
Since then I've had no further problems.
If you have similar problems with the brightness then try tweaking the plan settings in power options and hopefully this will work for you as well.
Cheers

PS: I did install the new chipset and bios updates for my T400 prior to tweaking.

I had the same problem on my HP laptop. fn f7 and f8 were dead. Going to the ATI panel or the control panel, "brightness" were useless - just took me to the "power" controls, which don't give much control anyway. Windows 7 seems to have it's main goal to prevent people from having any control over their computers! (I've also found that I cannot choose which updates I want to install) Anyway, I found an answer that works for me. Hit the "Windows" key, between fn and alt keys, along with the X key, and a nice little window pops up with the control. After this, my f7 and f8 keys work again too.

Did your PC come pre-installed with windows 7 or did you install it?
If you installed it, you'll have to re-install the Toshiba PowerSaver application in order to make use of the fn keys to adjust the brightness.