Almost every individual has at least experienced this problem as least once: zero percent brightness isn't pitch black, or the levels before it don't make sense. So I've had this problem before, back when my sister handed me her laptop after no longer needing it. At noon or such, the problem wasn't so blatant that I'd curse God for letting such a thing occur, but when night struck, I would go further to curse his mom if I could. Even at the lowest setting, my eyes felt like they were being strained, and when our school lent us personal laptops, I was ecstatic; as they were no and high-end models for the time. Although I myself I am unsure if that really holds out; at least not any more in today's age. At some point, however, I realized once more that the screen, although it actually could achieve "pitch black", when it came to the levels themselves, it was pure stupid on the way it was done. Imagine - simply, for but a moment - that you feel your eyes being strained for so long, staring at the digital text on your screen, that you know it's time to either shut off the computer, or lower the brightness. Any, well, "normal" individual would choose the latter, but now imagine that there are levels to the adjustments, let's say...ten. Rather than, oh I don't know, dropping the actual exposure by 10% each time, let's make it seem as though the 9th one still has at least 20% to it, before having the 10th level be a simple "pitch black" mode. Like why is the last leg always so bright? It's getting annoying!
The amount of light isn't always the problem but the color of the light of the computer has it switch to the blue light filtering mode or get some blue light filtering glasses. You are probably only compounding the issue by trying to look at such a dim screen
It's why I have a tiny lamp next to my side of the bed. Plus, I either use my Bluelight glasses or if the phone/tablet I am using has one, I use it as well. It helps sooooo much. This stuff can really fuck with your eyes. I used to have 20/20 vision until I started reading novels all night long, lmfao.
I used to have this problem back when I was younger and would have gotten in trouble for looking at stuff on my computer at night. Now I mainly just do stuff on my phone. The dimmest setting is pretty good, and the phone automatically changes color at night to be more eye friendly.
My phone is old fashion. I set the brightness so low at night yet its so bright that i had to sleep earlier because i don't want to get blinded by my own phone. I had a pretty good sleep though.
So here's a couple tips: For phones, there are who knows how many apps to further reduce brightness, some of which include options to turn off blue light. Those are always preferrable, it makes quite a difference I dont know about pc/laptop, but I imagine there are similar applications there, just gotta look for them. As an alternative, ya can manually adjust at least the blue light in the color thing, however that works on yours. While that doesnt help with the birghtness in general, it will definitely make a difference over any extended time of exposure. For the general situation of you sitting in the darkness on your laptop/pc, it'd be best to have a lamp on anyways, even if it's just a weak one. (For me, the optimal position is behind and to the side a little, but that might be personal, not exactly sure) Don't let some light defeat you!
Try using f.lux. It will automatically change the color profile of your monitor as it gets dark (based on your system time and time of year) to reduce eye strain.
you must first understand how a pc works. it depends on the ray tube used, I think it's called ray tube in English. There are alot of ray tube can't complete turning off the brightness with out cutting the signal and power at the same time. I think all monitors are like this, just that larger monitor wouldn't have this problem for obvious reasons. They need more power. Usually smaller monitor like the one in your calculator wouldn't even need dedicated powers. The driver card for monitor usally cut off the signal when brightness is set to zero. Or sending an weaker signal for calculator with brightness function. Changing the driver board would fix it but laptop usally use on board drivers boards.
Computer glasses are good, also try f.lux, a free program that turns your monitor yellow-ish based on the time to day to cut blue light.
One thing you need to consider is that if it's an LCD screen, it's gonna give off light even on a black screen. Other than lowering brightness and turning on bluelight filter, you can also adjust the contrast of the screen. If not in the operating system itself, it should be doable with software from your screen's manufacturer. You can make a "night" preset and use it when you need it.
Cathode ray tubes are used in old, CRT monitors. Modern, LCD monitors use an LCD panel and backlight. OLED monitors emit light from each pixel without the need for a backlight. LCD panels don't emit their own light. Most people have an LCD monitor with either cold cathode flourescent tubes (similar to a fluorescent light) or LEDs that serve as the backlight. LCD panels use 3 subpixels (1 red, 1 green, and 1 blue subpixel) per pixel. Those subpixels are gates that can be opened or closed when a charge is applied to the subpixel. By closing, partially opening, or completely opening the subpixel gate, you can create different colors by changing the ratio of red, green, and blue that are emitted by each pixel in the LCD panel. An LCD panel is like a stained-glass window. Behind the LCD panel is a mirror. If there's any light in your room, some of it can get behind the panel and reflect back to bring out the color in the LCD panel. I've never seen an LCD monitor that cuts the power to the LCD panel itself when brightness is set to 0, but there are a lot of monitors I've never seen, so some monitors might display the behavior you mentioned. The backlight inverter is what's used to supply the voltage needed for the CCFL or LED backlight. It's possible some of them won't be able to completely turn off the backlight, but most can. One reason some calculators can operate on a small solar cell is that they don't use a backlight. They just have a mirror behind the LCD panel that reflects ambient light back through the screen on the calculator.
some monitors actually don't need that back light connected, especially some smaller monitors. I know 30 ~ 40+ pins actually have the back-lights powering, but I have seen monitors with extra 4 pins it lit up with out the extra 4 pins connected. I didn't dissemble that screen one so i don't really know how it works inside. well the driver card and the monitors are all different, there is no perfect match of the two, maybe the design of monitor and the driver card works differently
All CCFL backlights need an inverter since they run on alternating current. I haven't worked on monitors since LEDs started to become popular, but I think they also require something to increase the voltage supplied to the LEDs.
I dont know that, but from I seen in the drivers cards, it's aways 12v out. How much current is there I'm not sure, but it should be able to work with lower current as I tried once and it's really really dimm not sure about other models though, that's a iMac screen. Maybe there are other boards inside of the screen, didn't change the back light tube before.