"Configure switchable graphics" option not always available

Hi,

I have my new laptop now for about a month I think, and I've always had a problem:
About one of two times I start it up, the option "Configure switchable graphics" which I should get when right-clicking my desktop isn't there.
I presume I'm running then on IGP because GPUZ will only detect my hd3000 gpu. If I go look at Windows device manager, then my HD6990M doesn't seem to be detected either. If I right-click the name of my laptop in the device manager and search for modified hardware, then my 6990m shows up; however, the option to switch graphics is still not there.
fn+F7 brings up the "Switchable graphics key detected" window, but choosing to switch doesn't work.
I tried various drivers and I have the same problem with all of them. For the moment I'm running on the drivers provided by Dell but they also give the same problem (I uninstalled the old ones first and ran Driver Sweeper).

The other 50% of the times I startup my laptop, all works fine however.

I hope anyone can help me.
Thanks in advance!

 

If you don't run on battery or battery life isn't critical to you could could disable IGP and have the machine running on dedicated graphics only.

I followed these instructions and it worked like a charm for me:

Check out this thread: turn-off-intel-igp-m17x-r3-bios-mod. There's a link in there for the unlocked A08 BIOS.

 

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, however, I really do not want to sacrifice my IGP. The main reason I chose to get the 6990 instead of a 580mgtx was the ability to fully control when to use which GPU.

 

Liopleurodon (cool dinosaur btw ),

The only time i had this issue was because of a badly installed driver. When updating to the 12.3's, for whatever reason i had all your symptoms. It seems that windows was holding onto fragments of the old driver not sure why. Also reinstalling the IGP intel driver worked wonders for me

It took me a while to clean out everything and reinstall clean...problems are now gone

when you have this problem, run GPUz and see what it reports. When i had the problem, my vram and core speeds were completely wrong and messed up and it could not calculate the bandwidth.

Try this first and see if it helps you:

- Uninstall all amd software from within the amd installer. Reboot
- Run Driver Sweeper. click on AMD - Display and then click clean. Reboot
- Install Dell Intel Graphics driver found on dell.com/support. Reboot
- Install Dell AMD Drivers found on dell.com/support. Reboot
- Install 12.3 WHQL. Reboot

 

yes 99% sure drive failure of the ati card

 

Thanks for the replies. (And SlickDude80, thanks for the compliment too )

I did like SlickDude recommended and removed all the drivers, after which I first reinstalled the Intel HD3000 driver etc. It seemed to be working fine, however, next morning the issue was back again.

I upgraded my BIOS again (to A09; my laptop came with A09 but I downgraded to A08 to get maximum performance out of my SSD). The issue was still there. Then I did reset the BIOS to default settings; and since then my laptop is functioning perfectly. So I guess somehow there was a setting corrupted in my BIOS? I only disabled turboboost and enabled AHCI so I don't think I did anything wrong...

Either way, I'm happy it seems to be working again.
I'll post it here if the problem comes back.

EDIT:
Problem began again... So it turned out the problem wasn't the BIOS after all.
I do dual-boot my m17x r3 with Windows 7 and Ubuntu; and remembered I added a param to the grub loader to disable the HD6990M card in Ubuntu to preserve battery life.
I removed that parameter and since then it's working again. I don't know if it's solved now, but I hope so...
I blacklisted the AMD driver in Ubuntu and it seems it also disables the HD6990M card so I basically don't need that param anymore.
If that was the culprit then I find it strange why it also randomly disabled the card when booting in Windows.

 

Strange how that still affected windows, Good to know If I ever decide to install ubuntu again. Glad to see you got it fixed.

 

I just started my laptop again; and the problem is back again....
So it turned out not to be the Linux issue either. (I though the parameter might have been executed in the GRUB2 screen already instead of just when starting Ubuntu)

I'm getting really fed up with this issue. I often use an external monitor, can that cause an issue?

Something that may explain my problem better: when the option to switch graphics isn't there, there is an other option: "Catalyst Control Center". When clicking that option, an error comes up saying "Catalyst Control Center cannot be started. There are currently no settings that can be configured using Catalyst Control Center."

I have an Alienrespawn backup with the factory state. Is it possible to create an extra partition on my second hdd (the 750gb my laptop came with), remove my SSD, put the original HDD in bay0, and respawn the factory state to that partition? Or does the alienrespawn need an empty hdd? If the switchable graphics thing works with the respawn image, then I know that it's a software issue; I start thinking that it's the GPU malfunctioning...