p170em radeon 7970m problems.....

Hi, I have had a prostar p170em for a while now and noticed that I have not been getting the results desired performance wise. Any benchmark that a program runs on my computer automatically only finds my Intel hd 4000 graphics card. My fps is generally low in all games, even though I have a radeon 7970m installed, i7 processor, 12 g of ram etc. My fps is extremely low dropping down to 3 or 4 on starcraft 2's lowest settings at 1280 x 720 resolution. But this is a similar pattern with all games I install, tomb raider, guild wars 2, metro last light, skyrim. I run all of them on low settings and still get low fps. I believe that the 7970m is just not being read, even after I turn switchable graphics on in the catalyst control center. All drivers for gpu's are up to date, and the vga is listed as amd radeon 7970m in the bios. Both cards are listed in device manager, I just want the 7970m to be the main graphics card for the laptop on all programs.

Please help with ideas and suggestions.

 

also benchmarks in link AMD Radeon HD 7970M - NotebookCheck.net Tech I just want these results. I have the same setup as the tester.

 

You are clearly running your games on the Intel HD4000. Make sure your power settings are set up for maximum performance, also on the advanced settings. Make sure Intel setting are also on maximum performance. In addition, open catalyst and make sure max performace is selected there also + the individual application/games is set to high performance from the list of applications. I see now in the latest Catalyst Control Center that a few applications are automatically locked to power saver( Intel hd 4000 unfortunately - or not), but otherwise it is a good thing to be able to manually switch. The 7970m runs through the iGPU, so there is no turning it off. The laptop always starts up with the hd4000, otherwise it gets confused and shuts down.

 

I have doe everything stated in your reply already to no avail. I just want more than 5 fps. plz help. Is this what I need to do? http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...-7970m-modded-vbios-clevo-p1xxhm-laptops.html

 

^Nooooo that is for HM models only.

 

well then what do you guys recommend? Is this a problem a lot of people are having?

 

Assuming you running in max power mode and latest amd drivers select enduro drivers, then there is little else to be done except individual fault finding. It seems your switcheable graphics driver is not functioning correctly as others have mentioned. Also this may sound dumb but you are running on mains?

 

Check you are plugged in as suggested above and make sure you select to use the GPU for the app you want to use in the catalyst control centre. You can check GPU activity with GPU-Z or MSI afterburner.

 

Don't start flashing your bios !! Did you get any error messages when installing the AMD drivers ? What's your status for display adapters in device manager ? You state that you have tried what is suggested, but are you sure ?
Do you have your power plan down at the taskbar set to High Performance ? On the high performance setting ->Change plan settings->Change advanced power settings, change your values under Intel(R) Graphics settings to max, change your values under switchable dynamic graphics settings to max, change your values under ATI Graphics power settings to max. I also changed the values under PCI Express ->Link state power management to off at least for "plugged - in".
Catalyst Control Center -> Power -> powerplay - High performance and maximize performance.
Catalyst Control Center-> Power -> Switchable Graghics Global settings -> Maximize performance
Catalyst Control Center -> Power -> Switchable Graghics application settings -> Find the application/game you just tried to run and set it to high performance.
Also, check taskbar - Intel(R) HD Graphics -> Graphics properties -> power -> maximum performance for at least the "plugged - in" - state.

If this doesn't work, something fundamental is wrong, or you forgot something completely fundamental.

 

What you are facing is not something anyone is facing these days. There is definitely something wrong here.

-Check that you are properly plugged in.
-Check all power management settings (both windows and in the CCC). Make sure all are set to maximize performance.
-Check your drivers. Do you have the latest AMD drivers for the GPU? Whatever the case, try to re-install the latest version directly from amd.com. Make sure you get a clean install.

Let is know if these things are in order.
EDIT: also, you say you have had this machine for while. How long have you had it for? since when did you start noticing the performance dips?

 

Okay, in order:

Individual fault finding- I have gone over everything with a fine toothed comb; so no luck there. I actually reinstalled windows 7 and redownloaded all of the drivers from prostar's site for my model.

Power- Yes I am running on mains.

Gpu under utilization- yes I do have a few programs monitering my system razer gamebooster, task manager, speed fan, gpu-z and cpu-z, and all say about 50% gpu usage.

Power options- yes all options have been set to max performance while plugged in, this was part of the fine tooth comb.

Catalyst control center- I was upgraded to the newest beta 13.8 which allows you to change global settings, in effect, changing all of the application to max performance. However, this caused a black flashing effect on games prompting the reinstall of windows 7

After reinstalling the 13.8 driver the flashing screen on games was still present. Everything else is fine. The flashing has been too much to test frame rate and I am doing a clean re install of the 13.8 driver right now.

I have owned the laptop for about a year, and the performance was never as advertised. This I attributed to the amd radeon 7970m enduro being... poorly designed. However I want to minimize that possibility that the fault is not my own.

Thank you so much for all the replies your assistance is much obliged.

 

Everytime I reboot I must manually switch each individual game in CCC from high performance to energy saving (save settings) and back to high performance (save). This is despite having the global setting as high performance for known programs. I'm running 13.1 WHQL, and even though its annoying to keep switching the settings, I have not tried to reinstall the drivers as everything works perfect otherwise.

 

when you re-installed windows I think you installed an old driver for the GPU then installed the 13.8 over it. You need to install the 13.8beta2 cleanly. Also make sure you are installing the intel gpu drivers before you install the amd drivers.

 

You know what , this shouldn't be neccessary. There has to be something wrong with your card. Most people are not having any problems these days with the 7970m. You say you credited the performance earlier to bad drivers, but I've had mine for a little over a year and it has never been anywhere near as bad as you are describing.
I get just over 30fps on crysis 3 with overclocked 7970m 1050mhz/ 1500mhz - My point being this card is good!
Your results are way off the map( in a negative sense). Have you tried installing afterburner ?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-mobility-7970-m17x-r3-illustrated-guide.html
The guide above shows a simple setup( Skip the installing of the card of course) that works for the clevo. After install try to push your clocks up a bit, see if you get any results. Hell, download Kombustor and see how much of the GPU it utilizes on stress test.

 

I don't think overclocking is the answer. The performance he is getting is well below stock levels. I have seen some other people on this forum who had similar problems due to bad driver installation. Once he is sure that he has a clean installation of drivers, only then should he try out other options.

 

Just try this "switch each individual game in CCC from high performance to energy saving (save settings) and back to high performance (save)".

 

My point being to test if the gpu can be utilized to maximum. He says he has tried everything else...... There are only so many times you can reinstall windows and amd drivers to be sure nothing is lingering on the system. I've installed, uninstalled, on top of old drivers, from scratch etc, etc... I've had nothing similar like that on my almost identical system.
By the way, MrCookiejar, what Intel hd driver are you using ?