Weird issue with screen brightness, no longer changeable

Hello,

Having a weird issue with screen brightness... please help!

It started about 3 weeks ago. I booted into windows and the screen was very dark. I opened the action center and it said brightness was set at 75% - as usual. Clicking on it changed the number, (i.e. it cycles through the brightness settings of 0%/25%/50%/75%100%) however the actual screen brightness did not change.

I've checked everything I could think of, especially in the power management options. Adaptive brightness is off.

So I uninstalled the display adapter driver and restarted - windows automatically reinstalled the driver and everything was fine. A few days later, (including several full shutdowns) it happened again.

In the last 3 weeks it's happened about 6 times. Each time, I reinstall the display driver and it works fine a few more days.

Interestingly, of the 6 times it happened, 1 was a bit different. Instead of the screen being very dark, it was very bright, as if i'd set the brightness to 100%. Otherwise it was the same - i.e. I couldn't change the screen brightness (although again, I could cycle through 0%/25%/50%/75%100% in the action centre).

I was hoping that a windows update would fix this issue, but I received an update a few days ago and the problems persists.

Any help/ideas would be very much appreciated.

Thanks a lot for your reply.

It seems to have been working okay over the last few days but next time it happens I'll check the driver info and report back.

Thanks again,

James

The problem happened again and I checked the driver versions as suggested. Sure enough there's a difference. When the problem occurs and I check the driver, it's version 20.19.15.4531 dated 29/09/2016. Once I've reinstalled the driver and it's working and I check the driver details again, I see version 20.19.15.4444 dated 22/4/2016.

Thank you for introducing me to the reliability monitor, I can see how useful it will be. There was nothing there that seemed to be related to the problem I'm having. Well, there were a few instances of NVContainer.exe stopping working (I have a GeForce graphics card) but these instances didn't line up with the brightness issues.

Thanks a lot for your replies.

Let's try to rule in or rule out other possible sources for the problem.
Do you have a second external monitor or a second monitor cable?
Does a second monitor have the same problem or no problem with the brightness?
Who makes the monitor and does it have built in diagnostics?
Is the computer bios up to date?
NVIDIA has the option to check for drivers. Often they are newer that what is available from the computer manufacturer. Most of the time they have not been fully tested. That is another possible option to check the new driver.
Are you using only NVIDIA graphics or are you using Intel hybrid graphics too?
In administrative command prompt run: sfc /scannow