Lost AMD graphics after windows 8.1

Hi,
I updated my Win8 to 8.1 yesterday and on restart, I am on Intel graphics. I got a popup saying "Your version of ATI Catalyst Control Center isn't compatible with this version of Windows.".

I remember when I switched from Win7 to Win8, it was pretty hectic finding the right AMD version, uninstalling mine, rebooting, etc. Not sure how I solved it but I had tons of issues figuring it the order of what to do...

Can someone highlight in order what I should do please?

Thanks!

 

what card do you have?

Seems like the r3 switchable graphics on the AMD side of things at least are all jacked up. I doubt dell will fix it either as windows 8.1 isn't officially supported.

 

Follow this link to remove all AMD-ATI entries and use one of the 13.XX drivers as they work well for me, i am also on 8.1, i am currently using the 13.15 win8 build
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...all-amd-ati-not-have-rely-driver-sweeper.html

 

I have a 6990m.

Mikecacho.
Thank you. I will try your tutorial to remove all my AMD-ATI entries and then use 13.xx. Can you link me to the 13.xx you used please? There are so many different links floating around and I don't want to use a modified version that'll cause more pain then necessary.

Thanks!

 

I recommend turning off the switchable graphics and only run off your 6990M when you install the AMD Drivers 13.X
AMD Catalyst 13.x (13.150.100.1) OpenGL 4.3 Beta Driver Download

 

Hi mikecacho.
Thanks for the help.

I went through your AMD uninstall tutorial and installed 13.x from your link. Here is what happened:

1) On restart (after installing the AMD 13.x), I have a white screen instead of my win8 login screen. If I click on the sleep button, my PC goes to sleep and when I click it back, I am brought back to my win8 normal login screen. Same thing happens if I put my laptop to sleep (closing my lid puts my PC to sleep). Not a huge deal as putting it in sleep/unsleep fixes it but if there's a fix, please let me know.
Also, once the screen is back from white (after the sleep method), I see the AMD Catalyst Install Manager say:
Installation complete (warnings occurred during installation). with the following log:
http://pastebin.com/aeQrRt0f


2) How do I know if the 6990m was installed correct? Is there a way for me to know which card is currently being used? If I go in device manager, the 6900m Series line does not show an error so I presume it worked but is there a way to know what is the current GPU used?

3) How do I turn off my switchable graphic (once I know my AMD is running well)

Thanks for your help. Every upgrade/major change on my laptop always brings the same headache in synching the right drivers. Wish Dell would do update their own drivers more often

Cheers

 

What I did was install the latest Ati Mobility WHQL drivers for Windows 8.1 on my old M17x r3 and they seem to be working except that I get a black screen when resuming from hibernate.
I tried to install the latest Ati beta but they gave me this white screen you were talking about.

 

thanks for the heads up!! I'll give it a shot later and see what happens.

 

I'm having the same issue on my m17x R3. Installed 8.1 as a clean install on a SSD. When I go to device manager I get the intel accelerator as well as the radeon graphics card (which is how it was on my windows 7 build as well). If I restart, I notice the radeon device throws up error 43. Uninstall the device does nothing. Disabling the intel graphics just throws it back onto really crappy graphics. If I try to install the Dell drivers or the AMD auto-detect drivers, it says it's not compatible with my device. If I install the beta drivers, I can't get into my windows screen at all. It goes white, black (not lit), then grey (lit) and stays there. Sleeping and waking the device does not help. If I put in my windows 7 HDD though, everything works normally. Obviously some sort of windows 8.1 compatibility issue, but frustrating none-the-less. Any suggestions? It sucks that Dell won't support 8.1 on this machine considering the machine is less than 2 years old.

Edit: Also worth noting I've tried a couple of different stress tests programs to verify what card the graphics are using, and the radeon card is never used in 8.1 with my current setup.

 

I manually shut off the igpu and it seemed to work well for a while, but now the temp's aren't showing for the gpu fan controller and I have to use HWinfo64 to keep the computer from overheating and shutting off. Why me??

 

I'm getting the white screen using ATI WHQL drivers to! Same screen as the beta ones. This is so infuriating!

How do I check if I am running the igpu or the radeon one?

 

gotta have the unlocked bios. I don't think it matters what version. Once I get my desktop built I'm tempted to just stick my old 460m back in so everything at least works.

 

1. White screen: first verify if you are running with switched graphics enabled (that is most likely the cause of the white screen) by going to control panel>hardware and sound>device manager>display adapters. you should only see your 6990M under that tab, if you also see your HD3000 as well then you have both enabled ( you also would have the intel graphics control panel on the task bar in the bottom right). Press FN+F7 will ask if you want to disable switchable. i never put my PC into sleep mode or hibernate, there is no point, shutting it down will eliminate surprise BSOD/Black Screens, and other issues. Assuming you are using an SSD it will not really take much longer. No matter what i tweaked and modified in the Reg keys, i still would get non-responsive video drivers (assuming it was the Ati dirvers in the first place, which i suspect it was not)when resuming from sleep, now this only happened maybe once every 10 resumes, but that still is just to much for me. And in every case it was an issue with the OS causing the black screen, the video drivers were all fine.


2. I would not worry about the warning message (the log showed everything working correctly), a lot of times it is because of the HD3000 and 6990M not communicating correctly. I have not used my HD4000 for the past 12 months now and couldn't be happier.

3. Keep the intel HD 3000 switched off... and install all related drivers for your 6990. Don't go back and enable HD 3000 you will enter the twilight zone once more and the headaches will continue. Sorry wish i had a better solution... i mean you could stick with Dell drivers only.

 

Thanks mikecacho.
I will simply not put my laptop to sleep anymore. It's not a big deal other than the heavy fan noise but I learned to live with that

About disabling my HD3000, FN+F7 doesnt seem to work. When I FN+F7, it says "switchable graphics key press detected. choose yes to enable or no to cancel". Pressing Yes doesnt do anything. I can click FN+F7 multiple times in a row and press YES each time, nothing visible is seen...And both 6900m and HD3000 stay visible in device managers (before and after FN+F7).

What I did is, in device manager, I right clicked the HD3000 and chose disabled. Is this the right way to do it?

 

Well, this morning I turned on the laptop (after really shutting down yesterday) and guess what? Black screen. Had to use the power button to get the display working again. Since my wife uses this laptop but not for gaming, for now I am switching to the Intel adapter.

 

Sounds like your function key does not work correctly. From what Bigtony has said he has the unlocked bios, which allows for advanced control of the BIOS. I would recommend it, but then again i would not if you are not familiar with how to recover from a bad flash, which could also cause permanent damage.

As for disabling it... i have never tried such a think for GPUs, but if it causes the machine to run better than stick with it disabled. The R3 seems to be a bit screwy compared to the R4 and since i am not a R3 owner i really cant provide relevant proof for a solid fix.

 

Yea as of right now I would say that the unlocked bios is a requirement to get everything running alright. You then are at least able to toggle between the two graphics cards at the bios level if you need to switch. Hopefully a fix comes out soon though. I'll see if I can bug AMD about it.


Edit: still no dice and I've tried over 5 different drivers.

 

I've tried using FN+F7 and I get no response. If I go into device manager and disable the intel accelerator, the drivers still do not work and I get the white screen to grey screen. Every time that happens, it's a wipe of the OS before I can use my PC again. I think I might give up on running 8.1 for the time being. Things seem to be too screwed up with AMD mobile graphics and windows 8.1. Does anybody know if windows 8 (not 8.1) works fine? Everything I have works fine on 7, but I'd like to have 8 for the decreased boot times and decreased resource usage.

Edit: does anybody have a link to the unlocked bios? If simply turning off the intel graphics at the bios levels resolves the issue, it'd be worth a shot.

 

its the price to pay to be on the bleeding edge.... good luck to you brotha

 

This is the bios you want right here: [M17x R3] - BIOS A12 'unlocked' & 'SATA tweak' -Thanks to SVL7 for his amazing work.

I can boot into windows just fine with just one graphics adapter enabled. Be careful what you tweak or you might accidentally brick your bios.

 

I have the same issue with the black screen when I use the AMD card. However When I attach it to an external monitor it works fine (the external Monitor that is). Also when I remote access it I can revert the changes back to the intel card.

Not sure if this helps anyone?

 

What drivers you on? I can boot just fine on the latest AMD beta driver

Windows 8.1 / Windows 8 / Windows 7 (64-bit)

 

I am on CCC Version 2011.0609.2331.40394 might be locked to the Dell ones.

In the process of downloading the Beta one's now.

 

Beta ones not installing.

 

Well, something new's happening!
So I disabled my igpu manually in the device manager settings (right click, disable).
I confirm I am on my 6990m as dxdiag.exe shows the 6990m (it showed the Intel one before).

This seems to have fixed my white screen. When I go in sleep mode and come back, my screen flickers but I don't get a white/black/grey screen. It just comes to my normal desktop.
Good....except...

EVERYTIME I come back from sleep or even when I open my lid (I disabled the sleep mode on closing lid), my settings go back to 2 displays! Everytime, I have to manually go in the Win8 screen resolution setup and disable screen 2...wth?!

 

I don't have the dual display issue. Not sure why that happens. Have you tried totally wiping all the AMD drivers off your system and started from scratch?

 

I just tried that now I get a message that say CCC cannot be started. There are currently no settings that can be configured using CCC

 

I've noticed the same thing. I think both adapters are enabled at the same time. One screen for the Ati and another one for the Intel. If I disable the Intel adapter, I get the white screen from the Ati adapter because it will switch to that one. My default screen is the Intel one.

 

Are you guys sure you are disabling the alternate gpu within the bios? I haven't had that issue yet and I've used both the igpu and my 6990m.

 

I don't have the unlocked bios and I'm not very comfortable flashing it.

 

a12 should have the option to disable the igpu and just run on the discrete card

 

Hi guys, I also have the exactly same problem with the white screen, and right now I can't use my discrete GPU.

BTW I have 6970M run on the latest CCC beta

 

have you tried the new drivers for win8.1 on Dell AW support site?

 

I'll give them a shot later, but I'm not expecting much as they are probably setup for enduro and the 7970m, not the 6990m.

 

Dell stop supporting m17x r3 for windows 8.1 already, so I use the driver from AMD website. I just called Microsoft Tech support, but they have no idea. They say if you want them to remote to your computer to figure the problem they will charge $199.

I was trying to install every driver that exist on the internet, but nothing change. I will still run on INTEL GPU.

 

If you can figure out the problem, Can you please tell me? I will be really appreciate that. Right now I'm stuck on igpu, and it is killing me.
Thanks you

 

if you're on the a12 bios swap over to PEG and you will be able to run exclusively on the 6990m if you choose.

 

How can I swap over to PEG, and what is PEG? Sorry to ask Im kinda new in this.

really appreciate your help

 

- Install bios A12 if you didn't do that already
- Enter bios and look for the settings for graphics card. Should be set to SG (=swtichable graphics)
- Change this setting to PEG (PCI express graphics I guess)
- Install latest Catalyst Mobility Beta drivers
- Win

That is what I did and it worked although I lost SATA3 for my SSD because of the bios update.

 

what he said pretty much. Sorry I didn't reply sooner but its been a long day. If you look a couple pages back you should see the A12 bios with the SATA III fix. I would recommend that bios so you get sata III Speeds.

 

Hi I'm new here - i've registewred because i found this thread

I had the same problem with other laptop vendor with W8.1 and ATI Drivers.
short story:
It was a newly purchased laptop with Intel 4000 and ATI Card.
on Win 8 everything was OK - i've installed all drivers provided by the laptop vendor, both cards worked fine. After upgrading to win8.1 Catalyst video mode chooser stopped working. Tto reinstall all the drivers in correct order and got in my case a black screen with flashing mouse cursor during and after catalyst installation.
Tried to reinstall win 8 from scratch -> updated to win 8.1 installing graphics driver - > the same problem - unusable system..
Catalyst instalation ruins the system. Recovery when prior helps.

But here's the catch - fiddled a bit with enabling switchable graphics in BIOS and recovery points and at some point realized that IT IS THE INTEL driver that messes things up!:
the diver provided by my vendor was in v.9.XX bt the WIN 8.1 automatically updated it to 10.X, so the solution i my case was to revert to point win8.1 no ati driver, then manually point to OLDER Intel driver and then install Catalyst.

Hope it helps for maybe some of you. It spoiled a lot of my blood.
Cheers

 

Gonna have to play with it when I get the chance. Got desktop parts on the way and once I get that machine built I'll be able to tweak my r3 without fear of not having a gaming machine.

 

So my laptop died again after the last reboot. I see the windows 8 logo for 5 seconds and then black screen. I launched the diagnostic script and it passed 100%. So I am pretty sure my issue is software, most probably my Catalyst drivers.
I am giving up on Windows 8, I will return to Windows 7. I have my windows 7 DVD that came with Alienware.

What is the step by step I need to take to go from win 8.1 to Win 7? I have everything backed up so I want to do a fresh complete re-install. Once installed, what should I install as drivers, etc? I really am fed up of fighting with my laptop and for it to be available less than half the time...I just want to go back to something stable, Win7 or 8, I don't care!

Thanks!

 

been working fine for me, but here ya go.

HOW TO: Clean Windows 7 Install (Driver Install Order) Guide for Alienware Systems

 

I was reading through your guys post, and I successfully got dells latest drivers for amd 6970m to work on windows 8.1.

1. I had to let windows install the Microsoft versions of the cards on the initial windows 8.1 install. (Just because Microsofts drivers say the right thing, they will not work!)

With these drivers however, dells catalyst control center would not install.

2. I had to go to device manager, and for the amd card and intel 3000 I had to click update driver on both, and set them both first to the Microsoft generic driver. Disable amd card only with generic drivers installed.

3.Create restore point. REBOOT HERE. Crappy graphics come up. Work quickly on next steps because windows will attempt to reinstall the Microsoft versions of amd 6970m and intel 3000. if this happens restore to the restore point.

4. Open dells driver, let it extract the files. CANCEL CCC INSTALL.

5. Re enable amd card with generic Microsoft drivers.
6. I then clicked update driver again in device manager, and browsed to the location where dells installer extracted the drivers. C:\Dell\Drivers\4NYM5\
7. I used the update driver tool in device manager and pointed both the amd and intel driver to that directory and both drivers installed successfully. Do the AMD card first.
8. I THEN installed ccc after the fact.
It was a 3 day trial and error before I found this formula to work. And this must be done on a fresh install of windows, and if any mistakes are made I had to completely install windows 8.1 all over again. I should also note that I had to install windows 8.1 directly and fresh, I COULD NOT update from windows 7 to windows 8 to windows 8.1 or windows 8 to windows 8.1 for that matter! after the drivers were installed. I got a white screen of death. anyways. everything works as it should. If anyone comes across this post and figured out how to get the most current drivers from amds website to work please reply and tell me how! I successfully got amds website current drivers to install over the original dell drivers in windows 7, but it's failing in windows 8.1. I get an install manager fail. I want the current amd drivers with working switchable graphics because elder scrolls skyrim has a yellow flicker when looking at a light source unless u turn off antriscopic filtering. amd has since fixed that. And my Battery sucks on the amd card.
Anyways eggzeon. For a fresh windows 8.1 install. do all of this first! Do not auto update, nothing. u do these steps, it doesn't matter what order you install anything else. wireless cards, ect, as the amd card was my only problem

Upon further testing, do not connect computer to internet at all until these instructions are followed....I found it makes it easer and the Microsoft versions of the amd card and intel won't download, it will already be on the generic windows driver for both. This will allow you to skip steps 1-3 and start with step 4. Both cards on generic Microsoft drivers.

 

also eggzeon....I ended up splitting my harddrive in two and setting up a dual boot partition. the first partition was the original windows 7 and everything alienware came with, and the second was windows 8.1. this way if I screwed up, I had a guaranteed windows 7 to fall back on. worked pretty well. there are well detailed guides if you google how to dual boot windows 7 and windows 8.1. Also. If any of you ONLY have a copy of windows 8 and not the direct windows 8.1..... Windows 8.1 Tip: Download a Windows 8.1 ISO with a Windows 8 Product Key | Windows 8 content from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows here is how to get windows 8.1 to install from a usb. now.....whats not there, is how to get it to work. this link will get windows 8.1 on a usb stick for you, but it will refuse to activate your key, preventing the install. here is how to get around it. and this method is legitimate, it's documented on microsofts site. using notepad create a file named ei.cfg lower case. make the contents of this file read
[EditionID]
Professional
[Channel]
Retail
[VL]
0

save ei.cfg in the sources folder on your newely created windows 8.1 install flash drive. this will allow windows to install, and then use your windows 8 key to activate it. voila. pain in my !
the above notepad file only works for windows 8.1 pro. The values must be changed to match other versions of windows 8.1. I will post the others later when I find the page again.
google my dell downloads for the alienware vault where your live central and power dvd are located as backups, along with any other default software as they are not listed in support.dell.com.
http://alienguise.en.lo4d.com/ here is where to download the dell colors theme manager...(alien recycle bin, ext)
google intel rapid storage technology, and install it.
windows update will take care of your Bluetooth.
synaptics touch pad and all motherboard drivers are on the resource cd....if ya don't have it, good luck googling to find the drivers.....will have to have dell send a new resource disk.
windows 7and the intel Centrino ultimate 6300 has the ability to connect wireless devices directly to your laptop. windows 8 and 8.1 kills this feature. (no Microsoft miniport adapter) Intel my wifi technology will not work. u must download or purchase third party software to create ad hoc networks. or, http://tipsandtricksforum.com/thread-210.html
I think that will cover all the drivers and software on a fresh install. if not, ask, it's late and i'm not thinking clearly. nor typing for that matter :S
night all!

 

might have to try that at some point. Till i have the patience to do so though I'm back on windows 7 ultimate.

 

I did make an error on my earlier post....when you install the Microsoft generic drivers, you do have to reboot. i'll edit the above post.
post is edited. I performed the procedure above 3 times exactly as I wrote it. (installed to a external harddrive to retest what i'm telling you all.) This works folks if you have my setup. it more than likely will work for other amd card versions. If you want to test it yourself, install windows 8.1 to a usb external harddrive and test it out like I did. that way your not affecting your hard drive. and you will know if it works for you.