An underwhelming screen brightness even at maximum settings creates a terribly disappointing viewing experience for the user. Generally, laptops come with automated screen brightness settings that adjust according to the surrounding ambiance. But you know how it doesn’t always help, right?
For the times when you want your screen brightness higher than maximum, you can rely on the following methods to get yourself out of the sub par viewing experience.
So let’s get started!
How to Make Laptop Screen Brighter than Maximum?
More often than not, the laptop’s brightness level is controlled automatically by the system. Sure it saves you from adjusting the brightness according to your changing requirements, but it can be more of a problem than help, at times.
So if you’re experiencing poor screen brightness adjustment, you can start by disabling the automatic brightness settings.
Disable Adaptive Brightness Settings
The brightness of a laptop is usually adjusted to conserve the battery or keep it appropriate for surrounding light conditions. Sometimes these automatic adjustments can drive us crazy.
To disable this function follow the steps below:
Method 1
- Open the ‘Start’ menu of your laptop.
- Open ‘Settings’ from the start menu.
- Once you have opened the settings, look for the ‘System’ tab and expand it.
- Next, click on the ‘Display’ option.
- Here, you will see a ‘Change Brightness Automatically’ or ‘Adaptive Brightness’ option.
- Turn it off and you’re done.
Now you can easily adjust the brightness of your laptop to the maximum or as per your requirement.
Method 2
If the above method does not work for you, you can resort to this method to turn off your system’s adaptive brightness.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Open the ‘Start’ menu of your laptop and search for ‘Control Panel’ over there.
- Open the Control Panel and click on the ‘Hardware and Sound’ option in the left pane.
- Now, on this screen, under the ‘Power Options’ you will see a ‘choose a power plan’ option. Click that.
- Here, you will see your current power plan and right next to it, you get an option to ‘change plan settings’. Click that button.
- Now you will see a few options to change your display settings. Below it, there’s also an option for ‘Advanced Power Settings’.
- Open the Advanced Power Settings and scroll down until you find the Display options.
- Expand the display tab and then, click on the ‘Enable Adaptive Brightness’ settings.
- Next, you will get an option to turn the adaptive brightness off.
- Once you’ve done that, click OK to apply the settings and exit the control panel.
Finally, you can adjust your laptop’s brightness as per your requirement and keep it fixed until you decide to change it.
Use Applications to Improve Brightness
Another method to make a laptop screen brighter is by using third party applications. You can download these applications to add a custom slider to your system’s taskbar.
The most commonly used applications to improve brightness include Lux, Brightness Slider, and Dimmer. But of course, you can find plenty of other options too.
These apps let you define a minimum and maximum brightness range for your system. Most of these apps have functions limited to brightness only but some offer additional features as well.
You can check out their details and download the application that suits your requirements.
Adjusting Brightness Through Calibration
If the above mentioned methods fail to get you the desired results, don’t worry. We still have another tried and tested method to make the laptop screen brighter than maximum.
This method involves the use of calibration wizard and can be useful for Windows 10 users. The calibration of your display will help you achieve a brighter laptop screen.
Just follow the simple steps below to calibrate your system’s display:
- Click on the Windows logo on the bottom left of your laptop’s taskbar or simply open the Start menu by clicking the Windows logo on your keyboard.
- Now search for Settings and open them.
- From the Settings, find and click on the ‘System’ tab.
- Under this tab, you’ll see multiple options. Find out ‘Display’ settings and click on that.
- Under the Multiple Displays tab, choose the Advanced Display Settings option.
- Next, click ‘Display Adapter Properties’ from under the Advanced Display Settings.
- In these Display Properties, you will find a Color Management tab.
- Under the Color Management tab, find Color Management, Advanced, and Calibrate Display and click on that.
- Now, simply choose the option to ‘Calibrate Display’. You can adjust the display settings as you please.
After you’ve adjusted the display settings according to your requirement using the calibration wizard, you can exit the settings and enjoy an improved display.
Why is my laptop screen so dark on maximum brightness?
There can be multiple causes behind this problem. It may be linked to the adaptive brightness settings of your system (we did mention a solution in that case).
But it may also be linked to other less known factors like a faulty LCD inverter in which case, you should replace the inverter to get rid of the dim screen even on maximum brightness.
Moreover, your system may be calling for a display driver update or a BIOS update (in rare cases).
How to update the display driver?
Many times a simple update of your display driver can help you get rid of the dark screen display. If you don’t know how to do that, just follow the steps below:
- Start by right clicking the start (Windows Logo) button on your laptop’s taskbar.
- From the menu, open the device manager.
- Here, you will see a list of options. From that, expand the ‘Display Adapters’ tab by clicking on it.
- Next, select and right click on the display driver of your laptop.
- Proceed by clicking the ‘Uninstall’ option and continue the uninstallation process.
- Once that is done, restart your laptop. The system will automatically install the required display driver for your laptop.
Hopefully, this should solve the brightness issue of your laptop because many times, an outdated driver is the real culprit behind a dark and dim display of your system.
How do I make my screen brighter than a max Mac?
So MacBooks typically feature a light sensor that adjusts the screen brightness according to the surrounding light conditions. This feature is pretty much the same as Windows adaptive brightness. Now this feature may not always render desirable results so we can disable it from the system settings.
To disable automatic brightness adjustment in your Mac device:
- Open the Mac menu and go to System Preferences.
- On this screen, find the Display icon and click it.
- Next, uncheck the box that says “automatically adjust brightness”.
- Now adjust the brightness as per your requirements.
Alternatively, you can also try adjusting contrast or inverting the display of your Mac device. To do that, follow these steps:
- From the Mac menu, choose System Preferences option.
- Next, click the ‘Accessibility’ icon.
- On this screen, you’ll find multiple display related settings. Check the box next to ‘Increase Contrast’ to make your screen look brighter by increasing the difference between light and dark components on the display.
- Or you can also try inverting the colors by checking the box next to ‘Invert Colors’. This may not be the best bet but at least you can try it out to see if you like your screen this way.
How to Make Laptop Screen Brighter than Max using Keyboard?
The simplest method to adjust the brightness of your laptop screen is via its keyboard. The laptop keyboard features function keys just like a desktop keyboard. Out of all the function keys, 2 are most definitely dedicated for the function of adjusting brightness levels of the screen.
Out of the 12 functions keys (F1 to F12), these two keys can be anywhere as the functions vary from laptop to laptop. However, you can easily spot these keys as they are represented by a sun icon on them.
One of the two keys is programmed to decrease the brightness while the other increases the brightness. In most cases, you will be required to press the Fn key along with the respective brightness key to adjust the brightness of your laptop screen.
Why has my laptop screen gone dull?
All settings up to mark but laptop screen still looks dull? Well, this suggests that there’s most likely a problem in the hardware of your laptop’s display.
A laptop screen may go dull due 3 primary reasons i.e. LCD failure, loose cables, or insufficient power. You can check for these problems and get the problem fixed accordingly.
Conclusion
Making your laptop screen brighter is easier than one may think, provided you diagnose the root cause behind the dim display correctly. We have discussed all the major methods to make the laptop screen brighter than maximum for both Windows and Mac devices. You can try out the simplest ones first. If that doesn’t help, go for the other options as a final resort.