Solved Radeon ATI Mobility Graphic Control Center Issue

[tazmo8448]

I have a fairly new HP Pavilion dv7-4177nr notebook(Win7x64 Home Premium) and have had all sorts of issues and the latest is the graphic control center which is usually on my desktop (the old right click thing) and for some reason it has disappeared and I have uninstalled my graphic driver (from HP) and reinstalled it several times to no avail. I don't get it...in the beginning in March of this yr I had to uninstall/reinstall right out of the box because it did not recognize the second switchable card (4250 on battery and 5470 on plug in) so if anybody has a head up on this let me know. HP has gotten to the point of telling me to have it sent in and I've done that twice already, new Hard Drive and second time a new HDMI port. And I know I probably got a lemon but geeze already. Thanks
Sam~

 

[gregrocker]

HP's are so loaded with bloatware that most tech enthusiasts find a Win7 installation DVD for their version and clean reinstall just the OS, avoiding the load of bloatware and useless factory utilties with better versions built into Win7. Here are the steps to go completely clean: Reinstalling Windows 7

If this doesn't solve the issue then it's hardware which you can trace using logs, System resources, hardware tests given here: troubleshooting steps

 

[tazmo8448]

Radeon ATI Mobility Graphic Catalyst Control Center Issue

I'm not too sure if it is a bloatware issue as it worked fine prior to me uploading an AMD ATI Mobility Catalyst latest and greatest, the 10.11 if I am not mistaken, whatever the latest was. But you are absolutely right about all that bag and baggage they tack on and its all about selling, so the wheels can get those bonuses and something to do with job justification.

I know or feel rather that this is something that was toggled off in that vast array of bloat, kinda like a runt in a litter trying to elbow to the tap. I'll bet if I've seen one I've seen atleast twenty five fixes and the thing is even a restore to a good known working point in time doesn't solve it. And with this set up my OS (Win7x64 Hm Prem) was pre-installed so no disc and even that was an issue out of the box (Unauthorized version) you know the drill, zeros starting in the registration number, one more headache. To me the powers to be need to make this graphic thing a stand alone so future update problems won't occur or at the very least tell or warn you when things will be changed. When I did go to AMD.ATI and use their update it changed my switchable card from 5470 to a 5000 series and that's when the problems started and no amount of uninstalls and reinstalls to previous good working driver updates changed it back to what it use to be and there lies the rub.

 

[stormy13]

One thing is that the reference drivers from AMD (desktop or laptop versions) do not support switchable graphics even when the two GPU's in question are both AMD. The only drivers that do support it are those from the laptop manufacturer.

 

[tazmo8448]

I was afraid of that...so the moral of the story is let HP figure out which is best and how it can be used and stay away from the manufacturer updates...that does seem to be why people get their tit in a wringer by uploading the vendor updates. Now for the 64 thousand dollar question (old game show) how does one repair it?

 

[tazmo8448]

What gets me is when I Googled the CCC thing and used Radeon ATI Mobility it took me to their site which listed the graphic cards in question with Win7x64 OS stating that this repaired issues in older versions, so naturally one would think that this is the ticket to bigger and better things....NOT

 

[stormy13]

The problem is the switchable graphics. If it had one or the other then likely the reference driver would work, but fall down because it doesn't know what to do with both in a switchable configuration.

As far as fixing it if System Restore didn't work and you don't have a known good backup system image from before this started, unfortunately the only way I know of to fix it is to re-install Windows.

so the moral of the story is let HP figure out which is best

Sadly that is the case with most laptops regardless of who made it, and equally so with any that do have switchable graphics (any combination of AMD/AMD, AMD/Intel, Nvidia/Intel).

 

[gregrocker]

Sometimes problems can be solved by uninstalling Catalyst if you don't need it for overclocking or other specialized settings that Windows doesn't offer. I consider it bloatware for the average consumer.

I would be on the lookout for a Win7 retail installer - any version will do since all can be unlocked to reinstall your licensed version following the steps Reinstalling Windows 7 .

 

[tazmo8448]

Well by golly I got it fixed, by going to the 11.10 update on the ATI Mobility web site and in their update downloads chose the Individual Downloads and then chose Catalyst Control Center. But before pressing Install I clicked on the Browse tab and removed all other packages in the Support tree under ATI in C drive then clicked Install. This is after I unistalled and reinstalled the HP graphic support driver (sp49517 in this instance) for the umpteenth time. Boy talk about chasing your tail!
Color this one RESOLVED!!! Thanks Greg and Stormy all of your input got me to thinking on the right path!

 

[gregrocker]

Good news.

Normally you can get just the driver via optional Updates, or from the ATI webpage for your model.

 

[tazmo8448]

AMD did warn me about their updates being beta but, the Cat Con Cen was a bona fide update. If I'm not mistaken there were five to chose from, Hydravision and whatnot. And big dummy me had downloaded two whole different packages from ATI over the course of several months that were generic and even when I went to Device Driver and uninstalled they remained under the Support tree, unbeknownst to me and more or less gummed up the works so to speak. There's always several ways to skin a cat but this was the less painful of the bunch, you would not believe surfing the net how many ways I saw of going around your elbow to get to your thumb.

 

[gregrocker]

May I ask why you need all of these big software packages? Are you overclocking or need special graphics settings?

Otherwise those packages are not needed at all and can cause problems such as you found.

 

[tazmo8448]

Gaming and streaming