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SP4 - Can't change brightness or connect to external monitor

edsmithers

New Member
Hello everyone. I'm currently having trouble with my Microsoft Surface Pro 4; I've tried to get in touch with Microsoft but they've either been unavailable or infuriatingly difficult to communicate with. So hopefully asking here will be of more benefit. I'm not particularly tech-savvy, so in any answers please presume I am a complete moron. Thanks.

Until yesterday, everything was completely fine with my Surface. But at some point in the evening, I noticed that I was unable to change the screen's brightness. I could click on the battery icon in the taskbar to change it from darkest to darker/suggested/brighter/brightest etc, but this would not actually change the screen's brightness in any way. It remained fairly dim.

This morning I arrived to my office and connected my Surface to myTV via my HDMI/mini display port cable, like I always do. And it connected normally, as it always does.

I had some free time so I decided to try to fix the brightness setting. I Googled it and this was the first result - How to Fix Windows 10 Brightness Control Not Working Issue

The page said to go to Device Manager and update the drivers for the Display Adapters. Mine was Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 or something. So I tried to update it but it said that they were already at the latest version, and the problem persisted. So then the guide said to try again but to select Browse my computer for driver software.

I followed the instructions and the screen turned black for a second and then turned back on, and said it had been successful. And suddenly my screen was much brighter.

However, at the same time, this caused my display on the TV screen to stop working. And although the screen was brighter, I was still unable to change the brightness settings. In fact, if I click on the battery icon, the darker/suggested/brighter area is greyed out and I'm unable to click on it. Furthermore, in the action centre in the bottom right of the taskbar, the brightness setting is now missing.

An additional major problem is that now my Surface refuses to connect to any external monitor. As I said, while I was trying to fix my Surface, my Surface was connected to the TV properly. But when I updated the drivers, the TV picture immediately cut out and turned black.

Now when I go to Device Manager and select Display adapters, the original Intel option is missing. Instead, it just says Microsoft Basic Display Adapter.

I've installed all the main Windows updates but that hasn't helped, and nothing has helped me online. If anyone has any ideas, please get in touch. Thank you very much.

Edit: I have also noticed that my Surface's camera no longer works. If I try to use it , it says:

We can't find your camera. Check to make sure it's connected and installed properly, that it isn't being blocked by anti-virus software, and that your camera drivers are up to date. If you need it, here's the error code: 0xA00F4244(0xC00DABE0)
 
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MickeyLittle

Active Member
Wow sounds like things are going south really fast. Have you tried a quick reset? If not try the following.

Power the Surface down first, don't know if that is required or not but that's how I do it. Then press and hold both the volume up button and the power switch and don't release them until you see the 'Surface' logo. Then in a few seconds when the next screen pops up you want to click "Exit" and then "Restart"
 

MickeyLittle

Active Member
Do you have an windows updates that need to be installed? If not maybe you had one recently and you can uninstall it.
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
At this point it is probably time for a refresh or reset - Settings....Update & Security....Recovery
 
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edsmithers

New Member
All my Windows updates are up to date. Do you think uninstalling one of them would help?

And I've heard that starting again from a restore point will help, but I'm not sure how to do that. In Settings/Update & Security/Recovery, there's the option of Reset this PC, but that seems to suggest that all of my data/files will be deleted. Is there an option to choose a specific restore point - ideally from Monday?
 

MickeyLittle

Active Member
You can try going to Windows update and clicking on update history and seeing if you had any on Monday but since it was Memorial Day you may not have had any.

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MickeyLittle

Active Member
As for restore points good luck with that as I don't think I've ever had one of those to work properly for me! So if you have to do a system recovery be sure to back up your files if they aren't already backed up to One Drive. And realize that all your apps will need to be reinstalled as well so if you have any that require licenses make sure you know where that info is at.
 
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edsmithers

New Member
Okay, this is my update history. Does anything look suspicious here?

And from the sounds of that, I'd rather solve this problem without having to deal with a restore/system recovery. I'm sure this has something to do with the Intel drivers - especially as they're now missing from the Display Adapter section of Device Manager. Is there any way to install them again?
 

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MickeyLittle

Active Member
Somebody else smarter than me will have to help with that but you can right click on Display Adapter and scan for hardware.
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
All my Windows updates are up to date. Do you think uninstalling one of them would help?

And I've heard that starting again from a restore point will help, but I'm not sure how to do that. In Settings/Update & Security/Recovery, there's the option of Reset this PC, but that seems to suggest that all of my data/files will be deleted. Is there an option to choose a specific restore point - ideally from Monday?
Restore Points are really deprecated, the Reset will give you the option of Resetting (Delete everything and start over) or Refreshing (leaving your data - but Win32 Applications will need to be reinstalled).

Another option is to uninstall the Intel GMA Driver and rescan or download the Surface Driver Pack in manually install the latest driver...
 
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