probook 470 not detecting second video card

[vedador]

Hi,

So, recently i purchased a HP ProBook 470 (H6Q21EA) with Intel HD 4000 and AMD Radeon 8750M switchable graphics. The laptop came with Linux OS, but I formated my disk and installed Windows 8.1 x64. My laptop is working fine now since I installed all new drivers and updates. Drivers I could not find were installed by HP Support Assistant. Laptop is running perfectly, but I have one problem. A 3D program I use for modeling and rendering does not recognize my AMD Radeon card, but only Intel HD. I even installed a few video games and in options section of every game I can see only Intel HD. I did set those aplications to high performance in CCC but programs still don't detect my second video card. (And yes I installed latest drivers and upgraded BIOS).

And please just don't tell me that you cannot choose which graphics card will run and that your laptop uses Inel HD all the time and AMD Radeon when necessarry because I can't play Skyrim on low settings and I should play it fine on medium with 8750M.

I wanted to try to factory restore my laptop but HP Recovery Manager is missing from my system. I didn't format my recovery partition - I kept it but when I try to boot from that partition I get an error "Could not stat device dev/sda - No such file or directory"

So is there any way to make my AMD Radeon 8750M useful without factory restore, or if not, how can I factory restore it now (without ordering restore disks from HP)

Thanks in advance 🙂

[Dunidar]

Hello vedador

Welcome to the HP Forums I hope you enjoy your experience!

I understand you are having issues with your AMD video card not activating or recognizing when it should on. I would like to assist you with this issue. Probably the most important thing to ensure is that you are running the correct drivers for Windows 8.1 on your computer. The proper driver for you to be running is the ATI Video Driver and Control Panel. I would recommend that you download and install this driver and see if the problem persists.

I believe this will resolve your issue. Thank you for posting on the HP Forums. Have a great day!

[vedador]

Hi Dunidar,

Thank you for your reply. I have installed ATI Video Driver and Control Panel and it says that i have the latest driver installed on my system. I have then reinstalled the driver, but still I can't switch my graphics. I do have, and I have had ATI Control Center with switchable graphics option, and I have set some apps to high performance, but they still detect only Intel HD 4000.

Default system on my laptop was Linux and I have managed to factory restore to see weather Linux would recognize my second card, but I have no experience with Linux so I gave up.

So yeah... my work on my laptop would be so much faster if I could make my 8750M card to work.

[Dunidar]

Hello again vedador

Thank you for your detailed reply. If you could check to see which version of the .NET Framework you have installed that would help.

You can also try reinstalling ALL the drivers. I know you have them already updated, but sometimes it is the order that is installed that can cause the issues. You ALWAYS want to start with your BIOS updates. In this case there is one but it only resolves issues with Japanese keyboards so I do not believe it is necessary (you can run it if you chose). You can move to the drivers next. The first driver you want to install is your CHIPSET drivers. Think of your computer software as a building and the CHIPSET drivers are the foundation. Attempting to install the foundation to a building after you build the building will not work out quite so well as building your foundation first. Once you have the CHIPSET drivers installed you want to install the low end graphics drivers. In this case it is the Intel drivers. Afterwards, you can install the rest of the drivers in whatever order you choose. When you have all your drivers and software installed be sure to run all your Windows Updates and HP Updates if needed.

As a last effort you can try to reinstall the original drivers that came with your system. To do this follow the steps below:

Step 1 Go into the Device Manager by following the HP Support document: Device Manager Information for Windows 8.

Step 2. Once  in the Device Manager click on Display adapters

Step 3. Right-Click on your AMD Graphics card and uninstall it

Step 4. Follow the instructions in the HP Support document: Using Recovery Manager to Restore Software and Drivers (Windows 😎.

I hope this resolves your switchable graphics issue. Thank you for posting on the HP Forums. Have a great day!

[Petruts]

That does not really work. This is not the only thread opened about this issue the probook 470s have. It seems that the only option is a BIOS update which should allow the user to switch to FIXED mode for the GPUs, similar to the BIOS updates that were released for the pavilion g series and some envy models.

[vedador]

So Dunidar,

Thank you again for your detailed answer, but it feels as if I am getting replies from a robot that really does not understand this problem. I have tried uninstalling and installing drivers multiple times. I have tried drivers from hp support page and drivers from AMD site. I have updated BIOS as soon as I got this laptop and the BIOS remained after formating system. I have installed latest chipset drivers before installing video card drivers, but still nothing works. In my registry it says that i have NET framework v2.0, v3.0, v3.5 and v4.0.

So I listened to Petruts whoose answer seems much more logical, but it does not fix my problem. I have downloaded and installed, as mentioned before, latest BIOS, but, when i go to bios menu before startup there is no fixed mode option, there is only one option called switchable graphics and it is under device configuration. It has a checkmark on the left and a question mark on the right which says enable/disable switchable graphics. I have unchecked that option and after booting into my system it recognizes only Microsoft basic render driver and my 3d rendering programs won't start because device/drivers do not support hardware shadow maps. When I go to device manager and click show hidden devices it says that intel hd and amd are disconnected from my machine.

So yeah...

I guess that this means that HP made and thet they sell laptops with a nonfuctional graphics card inside. I would love to take it out of my laptop if possible since it is just adding to the unnecessary weight. So... somebody please tell me that someone has it working...

[Dunidar]

Hello both Petruts and vedador

I am sorry you are both getting frustrated with the what you consider a lack of resolution for your issue. I understand the frustration that you must be feeling, and I do sympathize with both of you. I would like to point out a few things, so would you understand why I have been responding as I have been.

First, even though someone might make a statement that seems to be exactly the same as yours, does not mean it is so. We all have different applications, configurations and settings on our computers. To be honest it is a rare thing to see any two computers being identical. Now I am not saying that you are not both facing the same issue, but if there is a chance that following the steps I outlined in my previous posts would resolve your issue, would you not want to try them?

The drivers that I posted here are working on other ProBook 470's but not yours, and I am working to figure out why. I am not going to redirect the issue, and I am not going to back off trying to figure out what is wrong and find a resolution to it if I can.

Lastly, a BIOS update is not necessarily going to resolve this issue. What might work on one BIOS may not be possible on another BIOS. There are hardware limitations to take into account. So what might be available on one BIOS may not be possible on another.

As an example, try installing Windows 8 on a Pentium 2 or even a Pentium 1 and it will not function properly as the hardware was not designed with Windows 8 in mind.

I have provided what I could for this, barring doing a factory recovery and retrying the Windows 8.1 update before any additional apps are installed or settings made and seeing if that works.  

Lastly, this is a Commercial product and additional support is available on the Commercial Forums to get your issue this additional exposure I would suggest posting it in there as well. You can do this at http://h30499.www3.hp.com/hpeb/ .

If you decide to try the Factory Restore you can do so by following the HP Support document: Performing an HP System Recovery (Windows 😎. Thank you for your understanding. Have a great day!

[Petruts]

Hi Dunidar.

I understand perfectly well what you are saying. Note: perfectly well.

What the OP meant when calling you a robot is that you insist on this being an issue that you can resolve with drivers, which it is not(because I dug the internet and tried a lot to fix the issue with such actions and it did not work - again and again it did not work, regardless of the way you did it). You said that this worked on different Probooks 470s - please do tell where is the guy that said that these solutions worked because I will contact him personally and see what I did wrong!

Secondly, all machines are different in the way they behave even though they seem to be identical and the software we utilize on them becomes different from the moment we open it since every person acts unique in using it. That is what you said and I agree with it all the way. The problem becomes generalized when it is a model (like the 470 probook) that is presenting not issues BUT the SAME issue. Then, if a great number of people are trying out all the solutions that exist and they do not work the company most dwelve into the problem and try to reproduce past solutions that worked for other models (like the BIOS update that allows you to switch from switchable GPUs to FIXED GPU for the pavilion and envy models I mentioned earlier). And if that does not work either you start thinking at new things that may fix it.

We are at the point where the company needs to dwelve into the problem. You might wonder what determines a company to do that? Well, when the issue is similar/identical to what happened to previous models and the company knows that only with their intervention the problem was solved then they have to act upon it - and rememer, they need to reproduce previous solutions to see if those apply like a BIOS update and only after they see if that does not work they should seek new solutions. If they had no precedent then they need to look at new things directly but the precedent exists!

Now, you said that hardware has compatibility problems and that it may not be possible to do such an update. Also, very true. But considering that the company has had such issues before, would or better yet, should they not consider - if not test and offer -  the possibility that that exact issue may rise again? I mean, the laptops should have came with a FIXED mode BIOS option already integrated. People should not be forced to ask the company for a fix to an issue that is a PRECEDENT for the products of the said company! ( a simple example would be if you cook food and sell it to people and they ask for salt then you will put a little more salt in the next food you will cook and sell, right? well, HP did not)

In conclusion, they should act on it faster and they should go for the BIOS update because that is what it all got down to last time and it is the SINGLE viable solution that worked for EVERYBODY and not just for a body of their customers.

Sorry for eventual grammar mistakes, it is a long message.

Have a nice day!

[Dunidar]

Hello Petruts

I understand exactly what you mean and as I said I sympathize with your situation. Unfortunately, this is not a venue for contacting HP it is a community of people trying to assist people with issues with their HP devices.

The only recommendation I can make at this point is if installing the drivers in the correct order does not resolve the issue and a Factory Recovery does not resolve it, the only other option is to go back to Windows 8 and hold for any possible update. Keep in mind this update my come via the Windows Update and if and when it does the update to Windows 8.1 should be attempted.

Again thank you for your posts on this issue on the HP Forums. Have a great weekend!

[Petruts]

Hi Dunidar!

Yeah, the first thing I did on my laptop was installing Windows 8.1 Enterprise and in Win 8.1 this issue was present. Anyway,  I understand what you say. All in all, the problem persists and it all goes down to having games and CAD programs not recongnizing your dedicated video card (I have seen problems of this kind, people were complaining AutoCAD was not starting because they had not sufficient video power or something like that and when you need to work on something and you know what your laptop can pack but your soft does not recognize it you can easily go beserk on the manufacturer).
Except for that it is not a big problem, the dGPU does kick in in games and programs to take over the graphical responsabiliy but the idea is that games block your acccess to higher graphical settings if you do not have enough video power and you are usually stuck with medium graphics when you can easily play on high.

So, I think now you know why this issues is more than a bummer.