How to Fix Brightness Function Keys Not Working

Imagine the annoyance when your laptop battery is running low, and Windows 10 is not automatically lowering down the brightness to save your battery life. Or if you are watching your favorite series on Netflix and unable to increase the brightness. So, what should you do when your brightness function keys are not working.

Fortunately, you won’t need to reinstall windows as you can do a quick fix for resolving this annoying issue. Ever since the Windows 10 free upgrade, many users are facing the brightness control issue. Following are the 8 best ways you can fix the brightness if function keys are not working.

10 Ways You can Fix Brightness Function Keys not Working

1. Try Re-enabling Your Display Adapter

Step 1: Locate the display adapter after going to the device manager.


Step 2: Disable the display adapter for the time being by right-clicking on it. Don’t worry if the screen resolution changes.

Step 3: After waiting for about 10 seconds, re-enable your display adapter and then press Fn + F10 or F11.

Doing this procedure accurately might fix your brightness issues within no time.

2. Update the Display Adapter Driver

There are two methods for updating the display adapter driver.

Using a Third-Party Program for Automatic Update:

The first method of updating drivers is to use third-party programs like Driver Easy to update all the outdated drivers if you don’t have enough time to manually find the correct driver and update it.

Step 1: For this, first download and install Driver Easy.

Step 2: Open Driver easy; it will show various options.

Step 3: Use the Scan option to let the tool fix any driver issues or drivers that need an update.

Step 4: Choose the option “Update All”. It may require a Pro Version for one-click download or installation. However, the free version also updates it for free, but you may have to do it manually.

Manually Updating the Driver:

Manually updating the driver requires hunting for the correct driver by going to the manufacturer’s website.

Step 1: First, check your laptop model, which you can find at the backside of your laptop.

Step 2: If you can’t find your laptop model there, check your laptop’s underside by removing the back cover.

Step 3: Go to the manufacturer’s website, enter your model number.

Step 4: Make sure to choose the correct version of Windows.

Step 5: Choose the operating system 64 bit and then download your drivers and manually update it from there.

3. Try Reinstalling the Display Adapter Driver

If the issue still persists even after trying the above methods, you can try reinstalling the Display Adapter Driver.

Step 1: For that, go to the device manager.

Step 2: Look for Display Adapters and click. It will show your display adapter.

Step 3: Next, right-click on it, and choose the “Uninstall Device” option.

Step 4: A warning pop-up will show. Check on the box for “Delete the driver software for this device.”


Step 5: Upon restarting, Windows 10 will automatically detect your missing software and reinstall it for you.

Step 6: In the case of not starting download automatically, Go to “Device Manager”.

Step 7: Right-click on your laptop name and scan for hardware changes.

Step 8: It will detect the hardware changes you made recently and will reinstall your Display Adapters.

4. Fix Brightness From Power Options

If you have tried all the above-mentioned ways to fix the brightness issue but still facing problems, try the power option:

Step 1: Right-click on the power icon in the system tray at the bottom of your screen. Then click on the “Adjust Screen Brightness” option.


Step 2: At the bottom of the power options window, move the slider of screen brightness according to your desire.

Step:3 If the brightness adjusts according to your needs, click on the X on the top right corner of the window to close the power option.

5. Fix Brightness With Windows Troubleshooters

Using troubleshoot for Windows in an easy way to diagnose and resolve your PC or Laptop issues. You can fix brightness when the function keys are not working by troubleshooting.

Step 1: Go to settings.

Step 2: Write “Troubleshoot Settings” in the search bar.


Step 3: Choose the troubleshoot setting from the list.

Step 4: Under “Find and Fix other problems”, find “Hardware and Devices” and Run the troubleshoot to find and fix any problem.

Step 5: It might prompt you to restart your PC. Now you can go back and see if the brightness option is working for you.

Step 6: If it doesn’t solve the problem, try running the “Power” troubleshooter.


Step 7: Follow the instructions given, and check again for the brightness issue.

6. Use the Basic Display Adapter of Microsoft

Microsoft Basic Display Adapter has built-in drivers, but they need to be updated from time to time for swift performance. Updating your display adapter might be the most annoying issue to fix the Brightness when the Function key is not working. Using the Basic Display Adapter will save you from a lot of hassle by trying to change the brightness.

Step 1: Right-click on the Windows icon, open device manager.

Step 2: Expand Display Adapters and right-click your driver.

Step 3: Choose Update Driver.

Step 4: It will show you two options; “Search automatically” or “Browse my computer”.


Step 5: “Search automatically” requires an internet connection.

Step 6: If you still have no luck in solving the issue. Go back and choose “Browse my computer.”

Step 7: Now select “Let me pick from a list of available drivers.”

Step 9: Choose “Microsoft Basic Display Adapter”. It will update your driver.


Step 10: Restart your Windows to check if your Brightness issue is solved or not.

7. Try Disabling the Adaptive Brightness

Light sensors on your monitor automatically control the brightness feature by getting information based on ambient lighting. As good as it sounds, it may be frustrating at times. You may need to disable this feature to control your laptop’s brightness manually.

Step 1: To disable it, go to the search bar and type “Edit Power Plan”.

Step 2: Click on it. It will show the Sleep and Display setting.

Step 3: Scroll down for the “Advanced Power Settings” tab, and click on it.


Step 4: In the Advanced tab, look for Display, expand it.

Step 6: Set “On Battery” and “Plugged in” mode to Never.

This method stops the laptop to adjust brightness automatically, and allows you to adjust the brightness accordingly.

8. Enable PnP Monitor

Sometimes re-enabling the PnP monitor can quickly resolve the issue of Brightness in Windows 10. A straightforward method can save a lot of time and effort by solving the problem. But it can work only for PnP monitors.

Step 1: Right-click on Start and choose “Device Manager.”

Step2: Scroll down to Monitor, expand it.


Step3: Right-click on Generic PnP Monitor, select disable the device if it is already enabled.


Step4: Re-enabling it again will fix the issue.

Step5: The last step includes clicking on Action Button to scan for hardware changes.

9. Update Your Registry

A bug may also cause your Brightness Level to not change by Function Keys. If the rest of the methods didn’t work for you, you could try updating your registry. But be careful of any mistake as you mig
ht run into some severe error.

Step 1: Press Windows Key and R at the same time to open Run Command.

Step 2: Type “Regedit” to open Registry Editor.

Step 3: Scroll down till you find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.


Step 4: Now Go to System > ControlSet001 > Control

Step 5: Select Class{4d36e968-e325–11ce-bfc1–08002be10318}000. Use Ctrl + F to find the class registry quickly.

0pqzkF d 2Y6XXl 9

Step 6: Change value of FeatureTestControl DWORD to 0000ffff

Step 7: Restart your computer.

10. Fix Brightness Using Restoro PC Repair Tool

If you are worried about running into a severe problem by manually editing the registry, that may lead to full Window re-installation, you can download and install the Restoro Repair Tool. It is used for quick bug fixes or to repair any Registry error and save a lot of time.

It is a safe way to repair common errors, bugs and file failure prevention.

Step 1: Download and install Restoro PC Repair Tool.

Step 2: Launch the application

Step 3: Select the “Scan Now” button. It will show all the errors, including the one which is causing the Brightness Issue.

Step 4: Choose “Repair All.”


Brightness issues can be too annoying; an over-brightened screen may give you a headache or even migraine, whereas low brightness will lower your screen’s visibility. It can get frustrating if brightness function keys are not working or responding. So we have researched extensively to list out all the methods to get rid of the problem.

We hope you find any one of the above methods useful, and it saves you from the hassle of trying to figure out a way out of this.

If none of the above methods work for you, you might need to contact a specialist, as a driver update won’t fix the faulty monitor.

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