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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Alternative Operating Systems > Boot Camp and Bad Desktop display

Boot Camp and Bad Desktop display
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Geoff
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May 28, 2013, 11:21 AM
 
Using a Mac Pro system with W7 Ultiamte 64 bit and when I start up it goes first to the log in screen fine but when I go to the initial Desktop screen, it comes up with very low brightness screen like the dimming that goes on when you have a requester open but there is no requestor open.

Usually rebooting several times eventually gets it operating correctly

Any suggestions?

Geoff
     
ibook_steve
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May 28, 2013, 01:50 PM
 
What happens when you adjust the brightness with the keyboard or with the Boot Camp control panel?

Steve
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Geoff  (op)
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May 28, 2013, 10:55 PM
 
I am on a Pro with a three screen array so there is no direct brightness control from the keyboard that I am aware of.

The reduced brightness will sometimes vary while I watch it and occassionally have a colour hue shift as well

Sometimes so dark it is hard to even find the button to get to the Restart function,
     
ibook_steve
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May 29, 2013, 08:02 PM
 
What graphics card are you using? Do you have the latest Windows drivers installed?

Steve
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Geoff  (op)
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May 30, 2013, 10:46 AM
 
I am using the ATI Radeon and the last time I checked the ATI site they claimed that was a custom Apple version of their card and all updates would come only from Apple so I assumed that they would be included in any s/w updates.

Windows Updates are done daily and this is a sporadic issue, not a consistent one so I am more than a little baffled with it.

I only use the PC side for flight sim'ing and nothing else.
     
angelmb
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May 31, 2013, 11:26 AM
 
When I ran Boot Camp & W7 Ultimate 64bit on my Mac Pro 1,1 - Radeon 5770 Mac Edition, the drivers from AMD worked great.
     
angelmb
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May 31, 2013, 11:38 AM
 
And then, there are these drivers for Boot Camp from AMD. Truth be told I have never installed them and just did fine with the ones aimed to PC gear. Since I don't have Boot Camp anymore, I can't open this installer to check out some 'readme' file.
     
angelmb
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May 31, 2013, 11:42 AM
 
Since I presume your GPU is a 5000HD Series, I just found out about another pack of drivers, these show up once you do a search for W8 instead of W7 but are listed are drivers for W7 & W8 64bit.
     
Geoff  (op)
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May 31, 2013, 04:41 PM
 
Thanks Angelmb but my card is the 4000 series, early 2009.

I can have another look at ATI and see what they say now,

This problem may have as much to do with a system crash recently where I lost both my main HD and my Time Machine HD. It was starting to do this before the rebuild though and as another clue I have do continually do a PRAM reset and still get the startup chimes only for the first or second bootup after I do that

Much confusion in techno land.
     
angelmb
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Jun 1, 2013, 04:09 AM
 
Well, the Windows drivers for your Radeon HD 4870 are available here.

Hope it helps.
     
Geoff  (op)
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Jun 1, 2013, 11:04 AM
 
I will check this out. Now for the killer question I actually dl'd another version of their drivers and installed directly on the PC side, I see also that AMD talks about a cleaner to remove all previous drivers before doing such things - which of course I did not do!!

Main question is - do you install these drivers directly on the PC side or somehow though Boot Camp
? The ATI files are purely .exe files that will not run on the Mac side

Thanks again for whatever insights you can continue to provide.

PS - the new drivers did not touch the problem I am having with brightness (and the whole display does not centre but displays offset to the right about 10-12%
     
angelmb
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Jun 1, 2013, 01:07 PM
 
Main question is - do you install these drivers directly on the PC side or somehow though Boot Camp
? The ATI files are purely .exe files that will not run on the Mac side
Indeed, you boot up Windows under Boot Camp and install the drivers like you would do with any PC-only software.

PS - the new drivers did not touch the problem I am having with brightness (and the whole display does not centre but displays offset to the right about 10-12%
Did you install Apple Boot Camp drivers*? If so, there should be a Control Panel down in the Taskbar on the right hand side, it is a rectangular charcoal-gray icon. Click that icon and a little menu will pop up. In that menu there is an option that reads "Boot Camp Control Panel…" Click that one and from there you can change several options, brightness included.






* You download the Apple Boot Camp drivers through the Boot Camp Assistant software in Mac OS X (Applications > Utilities) and then you reboot onto Windows to install those drivers.
     
Geoff  (op)
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Jun 1, 2013, 04:03 PM
 
Thank you again! I was silly and thought the Boot Camp etc updates would all come with the Software Updates I do regularly!

Will know if a little while if this works :-)

Fingers etc all crossed!

Geoff
     
ibook_steve
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Jun 2, 2013, 02:07 AM
 
Originally Posted by ibook_steve View Post
What happens when you adjust the brightness with the keyboard or with the Boot Camp control panel?

Steve
Hmm...

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Geoff  (op)
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Jun 2, 2013, 08:29 AM
 
First, after almost 24 hours the Boot Camp file has yet to finish downloading for updating the system

Second there is no keyboard control for the three monitors being driven though a Matrox Triple Head To Go device and I did find the BC Control Panel but do not see any way of influencing the brightness control on the version that comes up

The brightness issue is occasional and sometimes boots fine and sometimes as if there is a requester open that dims the screen in W7. Add to that when the dimming occurs, the picdture is sometimes shifted to the right about 15% so a bit frustrating all around

Can only hope the Apple servers actually start serving and allow the file to finish downloading

Geoff
     
angelmb
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Jun 2, 2013, 11:54 AM
 
First, after almost 24 hours the Boot Camp file has yet to finish downloading for updating the system
It is a 672 MB file here for Windows 7, I am sorry that it is taking a long time to download this file.

Second there is no keyboard control for the three monitors being driven though a Matrox Triple Head To Go device and I did find the BC Control Panel but do not see any way of influencing the brightness control on the version that comes up
So, there is no Brightness tab on your end.?



Worth mentioning: the article linked before states that when an external display is attached to a MacBook Pro, the Boot Camp control panel lets you control the brightness of such external display BUT to control the brightness of the main display, you should go to the Power Saver control panel (that's a Windows control panel, not a Boot Camp control panel feature.) Don't know if that's the same for Mac Pro(s) and external displays.
     
Geoff  (op)
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Jun 2, 2013, 01:21 PM
 
Thanks again Angelmb but the BC Panel on mine does not have either the Brightness or Remote tabs on it and hopefully that will change after I can get this (*&Y(^Y)& file downloaded.

I started again - this time formating the stick to FAT-32 as instructed and after one hour it has loaded to the point it had after 24 hours so there is something suspicious here I think :-)
     
   
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