M17x r3 Help updating hd 6970 driver

Hi I am having so much trouble updating my driver for my hd6970m.

I am currently using the one from the dell site which is catalyst 11.8 but downloading anything newer from amd doesn't work. (currently 11.12)

It looks as though it has installed and gives no errors but when I go to graphics properties it still says catalyst 11.8

Really appreciate if someone can give me any ideas on what I can try to get this working (I want to update driver as batman arkham city is not performing well)

 

Are you installing newer drivers on top of your current ones? If so, try this: uninstall amd from control panel, download driver sweeper, go into safe mode and remove any AMD stuff you find, then boot into normal mode and install the new drivers (might require a reboot). It should be fine afterwards. I follow this procedure and haven't faced any driver problems.

 

only problem with this I think is you gotta have the dell reference drivers installed and then you install the new driver on top I think. I could very easily be wrong here. I Haven't had to mess with AMD drivers in a while, but It looks like I will have to soon.

 

just checked battlefield 3 performance... 12.1 vs Dell Drivers. Sadly, 12.1 performance is the same as stock dell driver performance.

 

Thanks for this I will try this when I get a chance and post back how I get on

I'm sure it's dell messing things up why do they do this? My desktop I built myself works great and installing drivers is easy. What have they done to make normal drivers not work :S

 

the reason why this gets all complicated is because of the switchable graphics

 

It is because of the ability to switch from intel to ati gfx. You get great batt life but poor driver support.

Your other option if you dont care about battery life is to use the custom unlocked a08 bios and disable the intel gfx.
I have done this and can now use any drivers I wish. I dont care about battery life on my 17 as I have other laptops I use on the go, this one just sits on a desk

Edit - You beat me to it Bigtonyman!

 

Just got a chance to read this post. This sounds like a good option. I do actually use the internal gpu from time to time but that is mainly if I want to use it in the other room and am feeling too lazy to bring the charger with me. I would happily put the effort in if it meant I had a more stable system. Are there any downsides with using the custom bios? e.g. will it break warranty?

 

hey bigtony, happy to see your 6990m is back on the way again let us know how things go this time!

 

will do, it will hopefully get here late next week

 

I haven't bothered reading the warranty rules, but I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to use non dell supported drivers and bios. I just never mention it, or rollback to official stuff before talking to them.