M17X R4 - ATI CCC "cannot be started"

After spending many hours to fix my sound card issues, now is the time to wrestle with the graphics card.

Here is what I did in order (Windows 8 64-bit):

1) I uninstalled all AMD driver and software (including their installation software).
2) I uninstalled AMD driver from the Device Manager as well.
3) I re-booted into safe mode.
4) I used Driver Sweeper to clean all ATI driver components.
5) I re-booted into normal mode, downloaded the latest 7970M driver package from Dell's website with my service tag.
6) I installed drivers and CCC.
7) I re-booted just in case.

Now, when I right click on desktop and choose CCC - it gives the following error:

"Catalyst control center cannot be started. There are currently no settings that can be configured using Catalyst Control Center."

Here is the interesting part. When I switch off integrated graphics, the video card seems to work fine. I got a 5900 score on 3DMark2011 for example. But CPU-Z does not detect any settings about the card and I still cannot start CCC.

I'm really sick and tired of having to deal with these crappy issues every single time I buy an Alienware. I am not a novice and in fact pretty good with computers, recently built one from scratch for myself (a desktop). In all my purchases from M11X to M14X to this latest one, every single time...

 

Sounds like driver issue, the dell drivers worked with my m17x originally but they had clocks stuck, try installing the latest ati graphics ontop (upgrade) of the dell ones and see how you get on, do not try and uninstall from device manager and install then, as it will not detect any card present.

 

This is the best route to take in this type of issue, give it a try and let us know.

 

Thanks Luis, how I got it to work was uninstall all drivers/etc. and download and install the latest drivers from AMD website. It also gave me a significant performance boost on benchmarks and multiple games.

Although I now understand by what people mean "Nvidia has far better driver support". I always had Nvidia cards on my desktops and previous Alienwares. It was hard to miss out on the 7970m bargain though with near gtx680m performance for $300 less.