Surface Laptop 7 Screen Backlight Not Working Correctly After Latest Hardware Update

Julian 0 Reputation points
2025-08-12T05:02:45.6366667+00:00

I installed the "Microsoft Corporation - System Hardware Update - 7/25/2025" on my Surface Laptop 7th gen running the latest Windows 11 update and using a Snapdragon X Plus chip on August 9th. Ever since installing that update my screen contrast/brightness has not been responding correctly. When the screen fades to black and back (such as going into full-screen on Firefox, during a PowerPoint transition, or during video playback) the display will suddenly flash white for a second drastically reducing contrast. It also doesn't always correct back to normal after this, with some other full-screen video playback appearing oddly washed out. This doesn't happen every time, only some of the time, and I've already checked every system/browser setting I could to see if I was doing something wrong. As far as I can tell, given the timing, the update seems to be the cause but I can't rollback surface hardware updates. Looking online, I found there was a July 10 release and a August 7 release, which looks like it fixes this problem - "Fixes an issue that caused the backlight to flash when devices were used at the lowest brightness level." I don't know which of these updates I just installed, and if it was the July 10 one, I can't find a way to install the August update now to fix the issue. I hope someone on here can either help me or give me some advice on what update I have installed and where I can complain about this problem.

Surface | Surface Laptop | Display and screen
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  1. Jay Mark Dullan 315 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-08-12T13:12:00.5466667+00:00

    Hi Julian,

    Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Community, Regarding on you issue/concern "Surface Laptop 7 Screen Backlight Not Working Correctly After Latest Hardware Update". If you suspect you got the July 10 update and not the August 7 fix, you can manually install the latest firmware. Visit the Surface Drivers & Firmware page https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/download-drivers-and-firmware-for-surface-09bb2e09-2a4b-cb69-0951-078a7739e120 then select your device: Surface Laptop 7th Edition, Download the .msi file that matches your Windows build (e.g., Win11_22621_xx.msi).

    Run the installer and restart your device.

    Please let me know if it works. I await your response.

    Warm regards,

    JayMark.D | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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