Context: I bought a Razer Blade 15 from 2022 RZ09-0421 laptop second-hand, it was slightly dirty and some of the keys as well as the touchpad weren’t functioning properly.
I opened it and cleaned everything, which implies removing the motherboard to gain access to the keyboard. I disconnected a bunch of different ribbon cables, also changed the thermal paste while I was at it.
When I put it all back together and booted, the screen was so dim that it was unreadable.
I asked for help to an AI at first, but was not convinced by its answer: It suggests that I may have damaged the ribbon cable in charge of the ambient light sensor, which would override manual settings and convince the OS to dim the screen, but only when using the GPU. While it is very possible that I damaged something as I am no professional, I don’t see how this could happen only when using the GPU and not when using Intel integrated graphics (which is the temporary solution I use for now). Moreover, webcam, mic and IR camera share the same ribbon connector and work fine.
Here are the things I tried and their result:
- Disable auto-luminosity in Windows, manually set luminosity to 100% => no perceptible change.
- Re-open the laptop and double-check ribbon cables => no change.
- Factory reset => no change.
- Uninstall Nvidia drivers => luminosity works fine for a few minutes, then gets dimmed again (maybe Windows reinstalls the driver silently?).
- Disable use of the dedicated GPU in BIOS => luminosity works fine, I can use the laptop without issue (except that, as a gaming laptop, it loses some of its interest).
- Boot in safe mode => luminosity works fine.
Hardware information:
- Laptop: Razer Blade 15 from 2022 RZ09-0421.
- OS: Windows 11 Family.
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop.
- CPU: Intel i7-12800H.
My question is, does anyone have any idea what could be the cause of all this? Is the AI suggestion plausible? And any suggestion as to how to fix it?
