Dedicated Graphics not showing in Device Manager

[Jouleano]

Hello.
My laptop is an:
HP Pavilion dv6t-3000 CTO Entertainment Notebook PC running Windows 7 SP1 64 bit version.

The issue is that the dedicated graphics card: an ATI Mobility Radeon 5650 fails to show up in device manager most of the time. So instead the computer uses the Intel HD integrated graphics.

Here it doesn't work.

Here it works.

I'm unsure why sometimes the dedicated graphics card is not detected but it's really frustrating.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[erico]

Are you able to switch to the high performance GPU by right-clicking on an unused place on the desktop?

-erico

[Jouleano]

No sir.

I have uninstalled the CCC (Catalyst Control Center). Because it seems that most of the time I do it (along with all other traces of the ATI card drivers) - after a few restarts, shut downs: it detects the dedicated card again.

[erico]

Install the AMD driver software package from the web support portal for your notebook.. Do not install the Intel driver that is available there.

-erico

[Jouleano]

Would I be able to install it even though the card isn't detected? Because I have the drivers (SP50640) for the card. I know it's the right one because when it does detect it: I've been able to install and it runs fine until I restart or shut down the computer.

If yes, may you please link me to it? I can't seem to find it.

[erico]

Sure.

This is a previous version. You may find that you have better success with it than the current driver package (SP50640).

Post your results.

-erico

[Jouleano]

I ran the installer SP 50078 and extracted the files. It then ran the ATI Install Manager and I clicked Express installation. The installation ran and after a few moments it was done with a yellow question mark and the message: "Installation complete (warnings ocurred during installation). View Log for details." This is what the log looks like:


I am familiar with this error because it's the same one that I got when I tried installing the other driver (SP50640) the times when it didn't detect the card. 

Should I uninstall the Intel HD Graphics driver before I attempt the installation or should I wait for the next blue moon so that my system detects the card and try to install it then?

[erico]

Hi Jouleano,

I had that nasty error message as well when I was trying to get the switchable graphics to work. Express install is not useful for this at all.

You will have to uninstall the HD graphics driver and the CCC first and then restart the notebook and run the softpaq again. Do not choose Express install. Let it extract everything in the normal place but install everything this time.

-erico

[Jouleano]

I uninstalled the Intel HD graphics driver, making sure to tick the box that said delete the driver software. I made sure the CCC was uninstalled, along with any other ATI folders that may have been lying around. I restarted the notebook and it auto-installed the Standard VGA Graphics Adapter. I proceeded to run SP50078 and let it extract the files. Then when the Install manager came up, I clicked custom and only two options were available: ATI Install Manager and the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable packages. I clicked select all and let it do it's thing. It still gave me the warnings ocurred during installation message.


I think it's worth to point out something else  I've noticed. When the card does appear in the device manager, the battery icon on the system tray appears as plugged in. And when it doesn't, it appears as if it was running on battery power. Which baffles me because my laptop is plugged in 100% of the time I use it. The battery charges and stays at 100% but it doesn't seem to recognize the fact that it's plugged in most of the time. 

Any ideas?


UPDATE:

I ran windows update and it downloaded about 100 updates. (I haven't updated Windows in a long time). When the laptop restarted in order to install all the updates, I went into the Bios and disabled "fan always on". When I come back into windows I see this:


I am afraid to turn the computer off, but I guess I have to in order to check if the solution is permanent. I'm going to run the SP50078 and get back to you with the results.

Wish me luck.

UPDATE 2: 

I restarted the laptop after succesfully installing the package SP50078 and came back to this:


I also found this to be quite strange:



Any ideas?

[Amshuman]

I do have the same problem on my g6 Pavilion 1200-tx with its ATI AMD Radeon 6470M. Pls help, every game runs on the Intel HD Graphics instead of the discrete GPU!!