[curious4me2]

Hello,

I purchased an iMac DV SE 500 Mhz in September of 2000. I got it with 256 Megs of RAM. When I bought it, it all seemed normal and I have not had many problems with it or the Operating Systems I have used on it. However, something has bugged me ever since I have owned it. The screen is unusually dark whenever I am viewing video or playing a game on it. Over the last three years, I have gotten used to it and just dealt with it. I can use it enough when the video I am using is bright and taken outdoors, but if the video is something I recorded indoors, I have to use the color viewfinder on my camera to see where to edit.

And dark hallways in RPGs are virtually impossible to navigate. Other than that, you can't notice that there is a screen brightness problem. I have attempted to change the brightness through the preferences, but it's set all the way up to the brightest setting. And when I set it at the other extreme, it gets a little darker, but there is not much difference between lightest and darkest setting.

This problem has existed throughout all the OSes I have used on it and I am currently running Panther 10.3.2.

I have lived with this problem this long, but I was just wondering if there was a simple fix or way I could get the screen to look brighter?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Krusty]

Go to System Preferences/Displays -- in addition to the brightness/contrast settings on the main tab, there are a myriad of calibration pre-sets on the the color tab. You may just be able to choose (or create) a new calibration profile and be done with it.

If anything, I've found that my iMac (summer 2000 -- 450mhz) tend to be much brighter than other displays (especially PC displays). I often have to go in and crank down the settings to make things darker so that I know what something will look like on other people's machines.

Best o' luck

[curious4me2]

Thanks for the input, but I have tried that in the past and I tried it again after you suggested it, but when I get to the screen about using the sliders to see the oval in the dark square, I NEVER see an oval (and never have) the square stays dark. So, I don't know. Maybe it's just a hardware problem? Oh well...

[Krusty]

Hmmm ... that is starting to sound like a hardware issue ... or you need to start looking for sources of magnetic interference nearby (unshielded speakers, another CRT). Other than that ... sounds like you've tried what you needed to try ...

[cla]

(Some) iMac 400 DV displays has had a history of going successively darker.

I went off to solve the same problem some time in 2001 and the temporary key was to turn the computer off, open it up, locate the black screw on the left side of the chassie, start the computer and turn this screw-of-brightness into (eventually) maximum.

It turned out that the problem was due to frequent use of the comp. The problem (evidently because of some kind of overheating) went away as I went away for the weekend. Hence when I came back the screen was all to bright since I had played with the black screw.

[cla]

B t w, I shouldn't have to tell you that opening the computer means having to tear that nice warranty-seal Apple ships (free of charge) with every piece of hardware.