intel graphics 3000 fades to dark until unreadable- annoying power saving feature?

[idata]

HI all,

Intel processor graphics 3000 version 8.15.10.2559, on Z68 chipset with i7 2600K CPU.

running 1920x1200 resolution at 60 hz and 32 bit color (the recommedned setting)

No gaming, only web browsing and office apps type stuff.

Windows 7 x64 ultimate

gigabyte Z68P-DS3 mobo, not overclocked, 16GB ram (64k dedicated to graphcs)

Here's the problem:

If I open an application with a "darkish" background (black background on a web page, for example), the display almost immediately starts to fade out and continues fading until it's so dim as to be unuseable (no contrast to distinguish white text on black background for example). It's almost as if there's some sort of "power saving" mode that gets triggered by the "darkish" screen.

Opening a new application window with a "lighter" or mostly white, overall background, will snap the display brightness and contrast back to norrmal. Even then, however, the screen starts to "edge" toward dimming, as if it "wants to" dim, but can't quite decide whether it wants to dim out or not.

Always, opening a new "bright" window snaps the display back into full brightness and contrast, for a while. This is very annoying, however, because I can't ever have any web page or app with a dark background open long enough to read or do anything without it fading! I always end up shuffling through different windows to try and keep the display bright enough to use! This is untenable, for obvious reasons.

The darker the overall screen, the faster it becomes dim, if that makes sense.

I've disabled any power saving options in the windows power scheme. Did not help. turned off the screen saver, too.

Sometimes the POST screen at startup is extremely dim and almost unreadable. The screen remains dim until teh OS boots to the login screen. It seems this particular symptom is somewhat random.

Please help, this is driving me nuts.

Maybe time to ditch the integrated intel processor graphics for a dedicated graphics card? I would hate to do that, because I liked the idea of intergrated graphics for the cost savings- I don't use this machine for gaming.

Thanks

[idata · Accepted solution]

Is your monitor perchance set to use "dynamic contrast?"

[idata]

Interesting.

It's a Hanns-G 28 inch monitor model HZ281H

I checked the monitor settings, and the option for "xcontrast" was indeed set to "yes"

Could this be the problem?

Assuming "xcontrast" is their trade name for dynamic contrast

So, I changed the "xconrtast" setting to "no" and we will see

it would be amazing if this is the fix- nothing like good ol' K.I.S.S. eh?

Thanks so much for the tip.

[idata]

You're welcome. Here's hoping that's it.

[idata]

just ran through the same apps and websites that had caused problems before and... no more fading!

Thanks for the correct answer!