Sager NP9150 7970m does not start correctly

Hello there.

I have a Sager NP9150/ClevoP150EM with Intel 3rd Gen i7/HD 4000 integrated graphics, plus a dedicated AMD 7970m card. I am running Windows 8 Pro 64 bit.
Upon starting the computer, the 7970m is not useable. When I open device manager, it does not acknowledge the existence of the 7970m; only the HD4000 appears. When I right click "display adapters" and select "scan for hardware changes", the 7970m appears, along with a yellow exclamation point triangle warning message. I have to restart the computer for the card to be useable. However, after a period of not using the card, when I open a graphically demanding program set to use it, the program or game will not load. It will bring up a white screen if left loading for a bit (like 10 seconds). If it gets to that point, I'll have to restart the computer to be able to do anything. However, if I exit out of the program before it results in a white screen, then run it again, it loads fine, using the 7970m. It is as if I have to "wake up" the 7970m before trying to use it.

Any ideas on why this may be occurring? It does not keep me from using the 7970m with games and programs, but is annoying.

Thanks much!

 

Drivers?
Are you official enduro amd drivers?

 

Yes I would guess a software problem too, if you can coax it to a working state then it's not a hardware issue.

I would clean out your current drivers and put on the latest enduro set.

 

Ah of course. I am currently running official AMD 13.6 beta2 drivers. 13.10 does not work correctly for me at all. But this issue has been present for every driver I have installed- all official- including the stock drivers that came with the disc. I've used just about every driver revision since 11.x drivers. I have tried both installing the drivers over the old ones and uninstalling the old ones and installing the new.

 

Well, is your bios the latest?
If this issue has persisted since you bought it inclusive of the installation disc then I would assume you contacted your seller regarding a solution?

 

My BIOS is currently on 1.02.14bLS2 BIOS and 1.02.11SA KRC/EC. This is the next-to-newest version, from November 2012. The newer BIOS from April '13 only solves one issue relating to UEFI. I went ahead and emailed SAGER for the latest BIOS, but it doesn't look like it will help.
I believe that this issue was not present when I received the machine. It came installed with Windows 7 and a free upgrade to Win 8 Pro, which I've been using. The problem arose after upgrading to Win 8 I'm fairly certain, so I don't think it was the seller's fault, definitely something on the software side. Besides, the card works perfectly as far as I can tell once it loads.

 

Another 7970M sucking. Surprising.

As for BIOS, I'd use PREMA's custom BIOS.