HP Support Issues Requesting Help (7690XT Video Card Flawed)

ALCON,
The following is information regarding this laptops known video card issues.
Link to known video card issues.

My Computer’s Specs:
• Model DV6T-6c00
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 2nd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM
• 2GB AMD Radeon(TM) HD 7690M GDDR5 Discrete Graphics(TM) [HDMI, VGA]
• FREE UPGRADE to 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 750G 7200 rpm Hybrid Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• 15.6" Full HD HP Anti-glare LED (1920 x 1080)
• Blu-ray writer & SuperMulti DVD burner
• Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R)

My Specs:
A+, Security +, CCNA, & GCIH.

The Purchase
I ordered my laptop on 2 March 2012, shipped 8 March 2012, received it 31 March 2012. I am deployed in Kuwait so due to the customs strike at the time, I received my laptop a little later than expected.

The laptop physically appealing. Its 15.6" screen plays blue ray movies beautifully. It's VERY quick to boot up due to the hybrid drive and the anti-glare screen works phenomenally well in the daylight. I was very pleased and excited.

I sold my old laptop to someone in need of a linux box & fully integrated my new laptop to my work. Installed all my applications, hardened the OS, performed updates at a whopping 35kb/s. Hours of invested time in getting this puppy up to speed.

The Issue
I had been using the “Power Saving” video card to do normal work. On April 10 2012 (35 days after shipment) I installed Skyrim and configured it to run the “7690XT”. After configuring the AMD Catalyst application I launched Skyrim and the FPS were garbage. After a few tweaks I got it to run at a decent FPS and I was very pleased with the quality of the graphics. Then the game began to crash and reset the graphics 30~ min into the game. Then it began to freeze the whole computer and was forced to do a cold reboot. This happened repeatedly. Was it the game? I installed Starcraft 2 and experienced the same problems. I would run the 7960XT while doing normal desktop operations & it would crash repeatedly till it would freeze the whole computer with the BSOD. I was stuck with the onboard Intel GPU for the time being.

The Research
I consulted the Oracle (Google) & I started to see all the “HP 7690XT Horrible Driver Support” posts. I went to HPs website and the provided drivers were from 2011-11-18! Downloaded, installed & no results. “You have to be kidding me!” I thought. I went to AMD’s GPU support page & downloaded the update software. “Your GPU is not recognized.” Was the result of AMDs GPU update software. AMD didn’t recognize the AMD video card installed on my computer? , over. I went to the BIOS update on HP’s website and it was dated 2011-11-18. I figured that my laptop already had this BIOS version due to the fact it shipped on 2 March 2012 right? Wrong. The BIOS version released in 2011 UPDATED the current version on my laptop! Oh man, that was it for me, I was ticked. Unfortunately I didn’t note what version was originally installed. Well, did it fix the problem? Nope. It still crashes. Time to contact the dreaded tech support…

Tech Support
I contacted tech support on 30 April 2012 (31 days after receiving the laptop). After receiving a prompt reply for HPs tech named “Pawan” I was escalated to “Laurie”. I contacted Laurie and due to the fact I’m in Kuwait I was assigned to “Adriana” then I was assigned to “Mario”. I told Mario the following:

Mario,
I tried to call yesterday but was told you were unavailable. E-mail
will be the best form of communication.

I have lost confidence in the fact that I received a faulty product.
This could have been mitigated by doing a simple burn in test before
shipping me the product. Did you even power the laptop on before you
shipped it to me or is that not a part of your quality control? Not
only that, I ordered the laptop in March 2012 yet the BIOS was not up
to date. How was I shipped a laptop without a bios version that was
released on your website 18 Nov 2011?

Due to lack of quality control, I am being asked to ship the brand new
laptop back to you so you can repair it. Thus causing me to be out of
a PC for 5 weeks minimum.

I'm regretting my mistake of not purchasing an Apple. Look, I like
the product specs on paper and wish it worked according to the specs.
I need a different laptop but dont want to be out of being able to
work for however long it takes for you to fix it.

This is the best way I can see fixing this situation. I order a
different HP laptop on your website and ship you the faulty laptop
when the new one arrives. I will pay for the new laptop I order &
recieve a refund of the faulty laptop once it is in your possession.

-Robert

Mario’s Reply:

Dear Robert,
My name is Mario from the Hewlett Packard AMS TCO Escalations team. I have included my contact information and hours.
At this point in time and exchange or a refund is not an options as your product is over the return and or exchange policy, which is 21 days from the receipt day of the product, if you want we can have the computer in for repair, i would only need the APO address that i can send a pre paid box to return your computer for service, this usually takes up to 6 business days to be repaired and then the standard shipping time that USPS takes to deliver the unit which it can vary up to 10 business days, i do understand the frustration on the time that this take to be resolve, but at this point in time we cannot refund or exchange your unit, if you have any questions please replay to this email and i will be more than happy to help you resolve it.
The office is open Monday through Friday 7:00am to 10:00pm CST. My office
hours are 1:30pm-10:00pm CST. Your Case Reference Number is *********.
Please contact me directly at (877)917-4380 ext. --.

Have a great day!

Help
I cannot be out of a laptop for that long. I would have to end up buying another laptop just to deal with this. I find it unacceptable to receive a known faulty product. BTW, this laptop was no longer found on HPs website. It has been replaced with a different model with a NVIDIA GPU.

I don’t want to swallow the pill that “Its just something that happens with laptops” or “This is normal” or “You should have a backup computer.”

Any recommendations?

 

Hey Robert,

I actually had the same exact issue as yourself. The best performance I got was when I installed the 12.3 mobility drivers and siwtch the bios option from dynamic to fixed. In CCC, I turned powerplay OFF and left checked the "automatically switch when using battery option"

This let me get 70-80fps in WoW on all ultra at a pretty stable rate. (Using the HP drivers, I was hitting like 7fps because it never switched over properly and only once in a while would it actually switch to the AMD card..) At that point my games really didn't crash anymore.

It's definately just a driver issue and possibly a bug in switchable graphics to begin with.

Basically HP sub-contracted some company to "make" this model. This 7690m XT is basically a modified 6770m that runs 100mhz faster. However, it is NOT an official AMD card so they don't support it.

There are a lot of people in the same boat as yourself and it seems some have had some success contacting BBB, HP CEO's and the such to get their problem resolved.

For myself, I was lucky enough to be in the 21 day return window and they exchanged my laptop for the model with the nvidia 650m card.

 

@Demonedge

Yes, I jumped through all the loops. Installed 12.3, updated the BIOS and switched to the Fixed video card option. Regardless of playing games or just surfing the internet it still crashes. It is repulsive how HP is not handling this video card issue. I submitted a complaint to the BBB yesterday, we shall see what happens.

 

Yes.

I my self am writing you from the DV7 with 7690m xt laptop.

I am also frequent poster (co-creator sort of) the Hp topic "HP 7690XT Horrible Driver Support"

For months HP has done nothing despite our protests and countless calling to the HP support and Ati support tech

HP choses to "ignore" this porblem... (by releasing the new dv7 with nvida gpu)

Every one with the 7690 or 7670gpu is litteraly doomed..
HP cares for no return policy and refuses to even make decent drivers.

Having said that ... most of us are left with 1000$ + laptops with 300$ laptop performance.

I am still shocked to enter the store this morning and to find out that new HP Envy 6 is using the 7670m gpu (with same problem)

What are they trying to do ??? Make a mass customer protest??? -.-*