HP, NEW Driver NEEDED for ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

[bykorbi]

I have done the 13.6 BETA so it worked but i have a quick questions.

Does this increase my performance for my Card? Because i notice, when i game on the go, i notice every 45 or so seconds, my FPS will drop! And then it will pick back up! I have seen this on Darksiders, which is a game an HD 5650 can handle. Is there anyway to fix that issue?

[jonathan11]

@leon,  I've installed the drivers on my envy twice , once was on a clean install after doing a factory reset, wiping harddrive etc.  You could try that and then install 13.6.  If it matters that much to you as it did many of us, I would continue to tinker with it because we have several people reporting it works including myself. 

[jonathan11]

@ bykorbi If you mean "on the go" as in on battery and not plugged in it could be a result from your battery power settings being more energy efficient than plugged in settings. Just click and take a look. I don't usually try to game on battery as you're never going to get the most out of your hardware that way.

This is obvious, but just to make sure, your switchable graphics may switch to integrated when switching to battery, you don't want that for performance. Also you can go to control pannel, power settings, battery power settings, advanced settings, and putting your min and max settings at 100% for battery. That will force a bit more power, your battery life will drop super fast of course.

Lastly, I had fps dropping issues while plugged in and a free downloadable program called throttlestop fixed that. Didn't really have to tinker with the program just ran it at default settings with a few things checked I can get more into detail if you try that program out.

Essentially a lot of newer laptops will throttle down performance when resources are getting maxed out. Don't want that, throttle stop prevents it.

[Leon_the_Druid]

Catalyst 13.6 is running but the controll panel shows drivers from way back in 2010.  Oh well games run, still my last HP anything that I will ever buy.   

[Minnick]

Guys, make sure to enable "Powerplay" in Catalyst Control Center when you get it working. This is a built in underclock to save power. I believe it is set to OFF by default, which is not what you want. You also want to make sure it says 'maximize performance' when plugged in. 

Just echoing what Jonathan11 said, make sure your config doesn't auto switch to 'switchable graphics' when running on battery. The built in (Intel switchable) is crap for graphics and isn't meant for those purposes.

To everyone else trying to install the 13.6 but not working, just keep trying to reinstall. You may need to uninstall your current AMD driver first (especially if you already tried to install over it), which will make your computers graphics look like 8-bit pixels until you reinstall the updated driver. It might be that the stock driver you all are running from the HP site blocks the correct install of the new one. I'm not sure. I can't remember if I was successful simply flashing over the old driver or having to uninstall it first and install the new one from a clean start.

If you need to check what devices are still there or updated after an install you can type in 'device manager' in windows search bar and look under Display adapters. Mine currently shows 2: "AMD Radeon HD 6500M/5600/5700 Series" and "Intel(R) HD Graphics." 

[Minnick]

And you ABSOLUTELY need to download a 3rd party program like Throttlestop or MSI Afterburner if you really want to get the most out of this card. There's a huge difference in my FPS when I go from stock clock 550MHZ to 715MHZ. Huge difference.

[Leon_the_Druid]

Not having an Intel CPU, throttlestop is of no use.

[orgonotic]

Thanks - I've finally updated my DV6-3031SA - ATI MOBILITY HD 5470 😄

I was trying to install another driver version from AMD, after cleaning all traces of the old drivers but it was the wrong one. When I tried, most of the options in the installer, where you select what you want to install, weren’t there – no option to install driver or CCC etc. All the options were there when i tried installing the same package over the old ones, but that process didnt work at all..

When I put my info into the AMD searcher jobby it came back with a page saying to install that AMD Mobility Radeon Driver Verification Tool. That crap failed - like it has done forever with HP switchable graphics I assume. But under that was the 13.10 Beta - and it worked much to my surprise!.. Only had it on there for a couple of hours but its ok so far.

I tried to install the latest Intel drivers from here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-drivers-software-forum/486908-drivers-hp-dv6-3xxx-dv7-4xxx-envy-1...

after that, because it says I’ve still got the ones from the old HP driver package, but it took away the option to switch between cards (no option in either the CCC or Intel properties to switch), and when I reverted to the older one I got some ATI error on start up. Did a system restore to just before I updated Intel ones and that fixed it.

The only problem so far is when I switch to Intel the icon for Catalyst Control Centre doesn’t go away like it used to. Its a fair price to pay for getting rid of the glitches lol. Anyway, thank folk its done now – no thanks to HP 😄

Oh yeah, i forgot to make a note of my color settings in CCC before i wiped if off the face of the Earth - system restore didnt get the presets back becasue i wiped everything including the profile thing - luckily i had the values written down in an old notebook lol. Took me ages to get it how i want, glad i didnt have to do that again.

Update - brightness control buttons dont work for me on the ATI/AMD graphics like some others have reported with new AMD drivers. It works with Intel ones - thankfully i dont use those buttons...

[animemog]

Glad to hear people have found workarounds. I'm wondering the brightness problem is a universal problem, though? I constantly change my brightness as I'm always working in different environments and adjust it accordingly.

Another fix I know of is my friend upgraded (or downgraded in most of our opinions) to Windows 8 and is freely allowed to update his HP ATI card with official ATI drivers. While I'm no particular fan of Windows 8, his computer seems to run similarly enough to Windows 7 since he hardly uses any of 8's new features. So, this may always be an option.

[SSDdrive]

Hello, all!

  I've been using this following program, 'Power Plan Changer,' for over three years now on my Win7 Envy and 2 DV7's and it works great, people. After installing, just left clicking the green icon in the taskbar will bring up a shortcut for dimming or brightrning the screen, just drag the slider left or right, also right clicking will bring up all of your power plans in a neat row, including HP's, not just the usual 2. Hope this helps!

   http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/PowPlan.shtml 

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