The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Issue with AMD Radeon r9 m290x

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by zbxd002, Sep 7, 2014.

  1. zbxd002

    zbxd002 Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hi there!

    I purchased a Sager NP8278 (Clevo P170SM-A) with the following specs about 2 months ago:

    Raid Raid 0 Stripe Enabled (Requires 2 or 3 Hard Drives. Combines Hard Drives for performance) (Sager)
    Second Hard Drive 750GB 7200RPM [SATA II - 16MB Cache] (SKU - HDD096)
    Primary Hard Drive 750GB 7200RPM [SATA II - 16MB Cache] (SKU - HDD099)
    mSATA SSD Drive ( Slot 2 ) NO mSATA Solid State Drive
    mSATA SSD Drive ( Slot 1 ) 120GB Crucial M5 mSATA SSD - Preconfigured as an OS Drive ( Operating System – Drive C: )
    mSATA SSD Drive - Configuration Option Non-RAID Storage
    Ram 8GB DDR3 1600MHz [1x8GB] Dual Channel Memory (SKU - RAM02S)
    External Mobile Display No External Mobile Display
    External Display Video Adapters No Video Adapter
    Copper Cooling Upgrade No Copper Cooling Upgrade
    Graphics Video Card AMD® Radeon™ R9 M290X (4.0GB) GDDR5 PCI-Express DX11 [User Upgradeable] (SKU – GPU19X)
    Thermal Compound - Stock OEM Thermal Compound
    Processor Sager - 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4710MQ (2.5GHz - 3.5GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache)(SKU – SPU201)

    My intended uses for the machine were gaming and software development. After setup, I tested a few games out to see how they would run. I noticed that on “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” it did not allow for me to select my high performance, dedicated GPU on startup. The game ran poorly off of the Intel built-in graphics. I tried installing the AMD Mobility Drivers (Enduro) online, and I was able to configure switchable graphics and run all games with high performance. However, certain games began crashing, with the message “a display driver has stopped working.” Online, I found that this may be because I am not using the correct driver. I looked in my device manager, and it shows my card as “AMD Radeon HD8970M”, which is not the card I have. I then tried to reinstall the correct drivers, but it no longer gave me the option to configure switchable graphics (just like before). Is there a way to have the correct Sager display drivers installed and still be able to configure switchable graphics so that the dedicated GPU is used on all games?

    Thank you guys so much!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
  2. Mathew Reed

    Mathew Reed Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    14
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    6
    Have you found a fix for this? I am currently having the same issue with my R9?
     
  3. Mathew Reed

    Mathew Reed Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    14
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    6
    From what I have figured out the R9M290X and the HD 8970M are the exact same thing. The R9 was rebadged as the HD 8970M which is why device drivers are showing the HD vs the R9.
     
  4. Mathew Reed

    Mathew Reed Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    14
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    6