I have a Sony VAIO VPCS11X9E and my screen brightness is at the lowest setting for some reason. Also, my FN keys for the brightness setting won't work. Any means of changing the brightness does not work, this does include the brightness bar when you go into settings.

I have tried so many driver installs, checked for any missing drivers or out of date drivers, but the only one that seems out of date is my Intel HD graphics which I HAVE updated, yet the Intel driver update checker says otherwise.

I have disabled AND enabled (just in case) the adaptive brightness, but it does NOT work.

I did have Windows 7 Ultimate running on before but decided to upgrade to Windows 8. Windows 7 never had any issues with brightness. Also when I load up, even thought I have replaced Windows 7 with Windows 8, it still loads up the dual boot screen asking me which OS I want to boot with. Booting with Windows 7 will blackout a few times then it will take me to the VAIO repair system. Windows 8 obviously takes me to Windows 8.

When the laptop boots up, the large letters or 'VAIO' are bright and normal and sometimes, but not always, when it gets to the dual boot screen, the brightness is normal. However, when this does happen, as soon as I move the mouse or click a button, the brightness immediately goes back down to very dim.

When it loads up into any other system or boot program the brightness is fine. For example when I go into Sony VAIO's recovery center, the brightness is ok. Also, if I boot into something like miniXP or a separate OS on a bootable disk or USB, the brightness is fine as well.

I have tried many driver fixes, but NONE of them work!! I have tried booting up into safe mode and trying to manually install certain drivers because that apparently works, but it does not make any difference at all.

If you could help me , even if it doesn't work, I would greatly appreciate it!! Many thanks.