Updating ATI Drivers on Hybrid Laptop

[Oskuro]

So I have a HP TouchSmart TM2 2050ca laptop, which has a dual gfx card setup, an integrated Intel HD card for low consumption, and an ATI card for performance.

Now, the issue I have is that the model has been discontinued, and there are no new drivers available at either HP or ATI (ATI redirects to HP's support site, and HP's support page for the model doesn't exist).

The question is... Is it possible to somehow update the ATI drivers to a more current release?


I'm guessing the answer is "no"

[Mr Bean]

You would be correct. Hybrid laptops all have custom OEM drivers. Standard release drivers do...not...work You can sometimes cheat by trying to kludge together your old/new standard release driver but it's 80/20 you just end up with an unusable combo with crashes.

[Joviwan]

there used to be a sizable community of indie driver compilers for mobility radeon graphics cards. You might be able to dig something up with some research that can apply to you, just be wary of 3rd party stuff.

[Edi]

Original drivers

The HP support page for the model does exist, but you must note that the last two letters in the model number, in this case ca, are a country code. So if it had been for the Finnish model, for the Finnish market, it would have been HP TouchSmart TM2 2050fi. Just dropping the country code unearthed the support page so you can find all the stuff you need from there.

Make sure to also update the BIOS if you don't have the latest one. In Windows you can find the BIOS version by running msinfo32 and looking up the BIOS line (not SMBIOS).

[Oskuro]

Original drivers

The HP support page for the model does exist.

I see. I knew about the country code, it's just that when searching for the model number on google (without the country code), the resulting links to the support pages would lead to a "page not found" within HP.

In any case the problem remains:

AMD High-Definition Graphics Driver
2010-11-05 , Version8.771.1.0, 199.1M

I already have these drivers (and have updated the BIOS, was the first thing I did upon buying the laptop, mainly because of a BIOS bug that causes problems with any non Windows-Vista based OS, bug that hasn't been fixed).

What I was really curious is if there was an alternate (hacky) way to update them, or a community that dealt with these issues (haven't had luck finding it on my own).

Unfortunately, I suspect there's little to be done but eventually scrap the laptop and get a new one. A pity, I really like this model.

Anyway, thanks for the replies!

[Edi]

What Radeon do you have on that machine anyway? Radeon Mobility 1000 series or something else? I don't know if the newest Catalyst software would work, but if it doesn't, then hack solutions are all you can try. Regarding the BIOS, do you have the F25 or one of the older versions? You could try to put Linux on that machine and see how it works, but otherwise I donät think there is much that can be done with standard tools.

As far as googling a model number, it is usually better to go directly to manufacturer's page and then do a search there rather than trust Google, which may have old links from years ago and the internal site structure of the manufacturer changed in the meanwhile.

[Oskuro]

It's an ATI Mobility Radeon, can't remember the number (and product pages seem to only mention the Intel card).

I do run Linux on my machine (the bug I mentioned only causes the backlight from the laptop screen to not turn on, requiring closing and opening the lid), but I rely on whatever Ubuntu uses when I enabled the proprietary drivers. Trying to manually update the ATI drivers has always caused Ubuntu to die horribly (Which is also why I never let Steam add the driver packages it constantly nags me about).

When I get home I'll check on the BIOS/GFX card numbers.


As for the ATI Catalyst drivers package, it complains that the hardware is not supported and does nothing.

[Joviwan]

start->run->dxdiag

that should tell you basically everything about your GPU

[Edi]

Won't help much if he runs Ubuntu on it...

[Joviwan]

...Yep, don't mind me, I'm just stupid and can't read.

[Oskuro]

I actually dual boot:

------------------
System Information
------------------
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Service Pack 1
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard
System Model: HP TouchSmart tm2 Notebook PC
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU U 380 @ 1.33GHz (4 CPUs), ~1.3GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450 Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: ATI display adapter (0x68E0) DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68E0&SUBSYS_1486103C&REV_00
Display Memory: 2194 MB Dedicated Memory: 503 MB Shared Memory: 1690 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Driver Name: atiu9p64.dll,atiuxp64.dll,atiuxp64.dll,atiu9pag,atiuxpag,atiuxpag,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver File Version: 8.14.0001.6143 (English) Driver Version: 8.771.1.0
DDI Version: 11 Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 9/9/2010 17:52:02, 37376 bytes

Trimmed and compacted. Odd, driver timestamp is older than drivers on support page. Could it be I have found an answer?

As for the Bios version, got these from the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\SystemBiosDate 02/18/11
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\SystemBiosVersion HPQOEM - 1

Which means there's a newer BIOS update at the support site (If the date is correct, I got the laptop almost 2 years ago, and I'd swear I had updated the BIOS... Maybe I didn't). I'll look into it.

Although.... Maybe the drivers for the US version are different from the EU version? If I fail to post in a few days it's probably because I've destroyed my system.

[Oskuro]

I'm a fucking idiot.... 2150es, not 2050es... No wonder the official HP drivers kept spitting in my face when trying to apply them.

*tries to install official driver*

The driver you are trying to install is not valid for this computer

THE FUCK?!

[Oskuro]

Ok, managed to at least install the ATI drivers, but for some reason the Intel drivers say the hardware is not being recognized.

In any case, the drivers are from 2011, so my problem remains, no further updates....

[Edi]

Okay, that explains some stuff. If the BIOS update went well and the ATI drivers installed correctly, then perhaps there are Intel drivers available from Intel's page and you don't need to use the ones from HP? Though according to the product specification on HP page, that machine does not have any kind of Intel graphics. If the processor has an integrated Intel Graphics processor, then you need to check from device manager what it is and download the proper driver from here. Choose Graphics >> Laptop Graphics >> appropriate model.

Also, look up the BIOS version from msinfo32, not the registry. That will tell you the BIOS version in plain English rather than gobbledygook.

[Oskuro]

Will do, thanks!

Yes, the Intel HD card is integrated, I'll see what I can do tonight.

[Oskuro]

And, according to msinfo32, the BIOS is: Insyde F.25 (18/02/2011)

On the other hand, I can't get the actual version of the Intel HD graphics (All I get form the different screens is "Intel(R) HD Graphics (Core i3)"), so guess I'll try and download a couple drivers and see which one doesn't complain.

[Edi]

That's the latest BIOS version then, since there are no newer ones. Hopefully one of the drivers is a match.

[Oskuro]

My problem now is that the Intel site lists drivers as Intel HD Graphics 3000, 4000, 5000... And I'm unable to find find what my system is supposed to have. The HP site, as you noted, doesn't even list the integrated gfx card in the specs, and other sites/pages won't specify the number. msinfo32 and the Intel control panel do not list it either.
I thought maybe the number stood for the amount of ram or other such characteristic, but the numbers don't match, and searching for the driver version hasn't yielded results.

Hence why I'll download them all and try and see what happens.

In any case I'm rather disappointed on how this laptop is built. By making the components not compatible with the standard vendor drivers, it has a de-facto programmed obsolescence. Noob mistake I guess (first laptop I ever bought), although seeing the shenanigans Microsoft is up to with the W8 licensing scheme (the whole "you must lock the BIOS so no other OS can be installed to get certification" thing) I'm not hopeful the eventual replacement will fare any better.

Makes me wish I had the technical skill to just assemble my own franken-laptop from parts of dead ones.

By the way... The BIOS name "Insyde".... Is it an awful Intel-Inside pun?!

[Edi]

Hmm, use something like CPU-Z from cpuid.com to find out what the processor actually is. Once you know the model, you can look up the specs and what kind of integrated HD graphics it has and install the correct driver

[Oskuro]

Thanks! Learning new things is always fun!