NVIDIA auto-contrast on battery issue (Precision M4700 / M6700 / M4800 / M6800 / 7510 / 7710)

So, an issue has come up that makes Optimus less appealing for a while, I need the NVIDIA GPU driving everything. I switched Optimus off in the BIOS and ran into the auto-contrast issue on battery, which I will describe in a moment but has been previously discussed in the M6700 thread. I have personally encountered this issue on the M6700, M4800, and 7510 — in fact, I have never found an applicable machine that does not have this issue. I'd like to make a push to get Dell to do something about it and it would help if I can demonstrate that the issue is widespread.

Here is the issue: When running on battery, the contrast of the display changes based on the brightness of the content shown. I'm not sure what the point of this is. Strangely, the darker the image you are presenting on the display, the darker the contrast adjusts to make it. (It is not brightening up to show you something dark... it is doing the opposite.)

Prerequisites:
* You are using one of the Precision models listed in the thread title
* You have an NVIDIA GPU
* Graphics switching / Optimus is disabled in the BIOS setup (NVIDIA GPU is driving the laptop display)
* You are running on battery power (AC adapter or dock is not plugged in)

Here is an easy way to check to see if your machine exhibits this problem.
* If you are running Windows 7 and you are using the "High performance" power profile, switch the power profile to "Balanced." Windows 8/10 can use any power profile.
* Unplug your AC adapter / dock to put the machine on battery power.
* Go to this page: http://ift.tt/2amgRsU
* Maximize the browser window so that it takes up the entire screen.
* Pay close attention to the browser chrome (bars and stuff at the top), while you scroll the page to move the white box in and out of view. If you see the contrast level changing, this is the issue that I am talking about. You will observe that this only happens when the system is running on battery power.

If some of you wouldn't mind running this test, and posting back if you see the same issue or not. Again, every machine I have tried has demonstrated this problem. I am interested to find out how widespread it is. I guess it would also be helpful to know...
* Exactly which model Precision are you using
* What kind of display do you have
* What version of Windows and the NVIDIA driver are you running on
* Are you using the Dell Windows image or did you build your own / install from scratch

I've done some investigation on this issue and will provide some additional background / notes.

* This issue only impacts the laptop display, not external displays.

* I've done a couple of clean Windows installs just to check on this, and the issue always appears as soon as the NVIDIA driver is installed.

* This is clearly an NVIDIA driver issue. It is not an issue with the system hardware or with the screen. It was introduced when NVIDIA moved to WDDM 1.3 for Windows 8.1, but the issue occurs on all versions of Windows. This issue pops up with NVIDIA driver version 325.xx and up, but older drivers do not have it. (I believe of the machines listed in the thread title, only M4700 / M6700 are capable of running a driver old enough to escape this issue.) Also, if you are running without the NVIDIA driver loaded (safe mode perhaps), this issue does not appear.

* If you happen to be running Windows 7, you can escape this issue by going to the Windows Power Options control panel, advanced setting, and finding the setting for Display -> Adaptive Backlight. (Note: This is different than Adaptive Brightness.) Disable it and the issue will go away. This option is not presented in Windows 8 and higher. I found where the relevant settings are stored in the registry but setting them in Windows 8/10 has no effect.

* This issue is not limited to Dell machines. Here is a thread on some Asus forums complaining about the same thing. Many possible solutions are presented, and some seem to work for some people, but I've been through them all without any success. There are other threads about this problem around on the Internet but this is the most exhaustive one that I have found.

* I have attempted to engage NVIDIA directly about this issue without success. Since the issue affects the latest generation of Precision machines, it may be possible to get Dell to engage NVIDIA and get this fixed.

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NVIDIA auto-contrast on battery issue (Precision M4700 / M6700 / M4800 / M6800 / 7510 / 7710)