New AMD Driver corrupting Win7 on HP ProBook 450 G1 Notebook PC Model #: G1Q53UT

[Ayashi]

I recently had the misfortune of screwing up my Win7 installation beyond repair, restore points corrupted, you name it.  To the point, I began from scratch and have caught up pretty reasonably. 

I noticed a new graphic driver previously not released while I was busy destroying my previous Win7 installation, and upon installing it discovered that every time I completed the installation, it would reboot, flash a few times (which video driver installations tend to do), then Aero would be turned off and a popup would say a restart was necessary due to 'changes made.'

So I would restart, and even before I could login, I saw the flashing taking place as the login screen loaded.  Upon logging in, there it was again, 'restart due to changes.'

This happened seven times.  I finally loaded a restore point from before it and things are fine now.  Here is a screenshot of iolo System Mechanic and Windows Update's visual of the driver.  I know my ProBook has interchangable GPU capabilities which has been the source of quite a bit of stress, so I wondered if this simply wasn't meant for my particular laptop, but I would like some insight from the community.

Here are the pictures of the drivers:

Can anyone verify or offer some insight to a very confused user of an otherwise amazing machine?  I always like to have the best graphic drivers possible for the gaming this laptop is capable of running (D3 at impressive FPS, WoW too.)

All help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance.

Ayashi

[Ayashi]

I should mention that while it isn't destroying my ability to use the laptop, Aero is completely unavailable in visuals and in actions (windows + tab), plus the "Changes have been made to this system, you must restart your computer" will pop up a few minutes after closing out of it.

Obviously the current solution is to avoid installing the latest driver, even though HP and Windows Update found the exact same one for my model, and it's extremely recent after nearly two years of no new graphic drivers--I would like to take advantage of any performance increases they might provide, so I'd really rather not sit on my current drivers.

Remember this model of ProBook has the dual GPU setup which caused problems the day I bought it, but after sticking to the "included only" software package and not upgrading drivers like I would a normal machine, my Catalyst panel and switchable graphic menu looks like this:

I will readily admit that while I've built dozens of desktops, fixed laptops, and even tablets, I am absolutely baffled by this particular laptop and the excitement *ahem* it's provided me these last few years.

Any help folks? 

[WAWood]

Ayashi

Sorry for the bad news, but you should NOT be installing video drivers from anywhere other than from HP -- and using any third party "driver tool" to do this is even worse!

Your PC has something known as Switchable Graphics and the AMD drivers do not support this; instead, you MUST use the drivers from the HP website.

The good news is that HP does supply Win10 video drivers for your PC: http://h20566.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/readIndex?sp4ts.oid=5405166&swLangOid=8&swEnvOid=4192

You should download and run this AMD CLean utility before you reinstall the AMD drivers: AMD Clean Uninstall Utility

Good Luck

[Ayashi]

Hi WAWood and thank you for your response!  I completely agree regarding third party findings/installations, but System Mechanic is actually a legit software piece with a paid consumer base etc.etc.  It pulls all available updates from what Windows Update discovers to make things a little easier--I'm aware how fishy it looks in hindsight.

Here is where/what/how I originally acquired and experienced the mess of endless 'please restart' prompts, seen below from a far more legitimate-flavoured source:

Either way, performing a system restore fixes the issue each time I encounter this, but it's a serious pain.  The reason I am bothering with this is because it is EXTREMELY rare for any sort of release to come out for this model ProBook, and it already performs quite admirably with two year old graphic drivers. 

I appreciate the link to the Win10 graphic driver, but I'm on Win7, and have also resorted to downloading the exact drivers shown above from the HP driver downloads area.  I have not tried the cleaner yet though, and I think you're definitely onto something--I will definitely try this.

One last slightly unrelated question.  Do we have to keep all the 'used' SP23843(example) folders that accumulated over time with every driver and update acquired?  The directory is MANY gigs, and most of the contents are nothing but the installer executable. 

Ugh, computers should be like toasters: you push one button and you get what you WANT.  I get so tired of these anomalies!!!

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

Ayashi

I, personally, store the HP downloads offline and remove the folders after applying them.  Since they are self-extracting archives, it's a simple matter to copy them back to the PC and rerun them -- if I need to reinstall any of them.

I agree that if the older drivers work OK, then I would not change them simply because a newer version came out.

If you're having problems with HP Support Assistant forcing updates that are corrupting the display, then I would remove or disable HPSA -- as it is very unlikely that HP is still producting updates for an older PC. You will still then be able to get Windows Updates, without HPSA in place.

Good Luck