Error updating AMD notebook GPUs ?

[David_Velho]

This is my first post, so...yeah.

 

Background story:
I got my first laptop in 2011. It was a low to mid range notebook from HP with an AMD gpu in it (and the integrated Intel one) , and for the majority of the time, i didn't feel the need to update the gpu drivers. However, i did try once. I downloaded the drivers using the auto detect utility and started the installation process. The screen flickered a few times and the theme changed from the win 7 Aero theme to a normal looking win 7 ( i don't know how else to describe it), and i was prompted for a restart, so i restarted it. Upon restart, i found out that my gpu wasn't working properly (as displayed in device manager) and i could no longer use it. I tried to fix it , but couldn't. So i restored my system to a restore point which i created before i began updating, and it successfully restored.

 

I started getting into 3D modelling and other stuff which require 3D acceleration, but my driver was either out of date or gpu wasn't supported, so i was ray tracing using my cpu, which wasn't very fast.

About a year ago, my uncle handed me his mid range Dell Inspiron laptop and of course i couldn't say no. Then as blender got support for AMD GPUs, the only thing remaining was a driver update, which i did, 2 days ago. About the same results followed, which led to me restoring the system back to before the update. However, the very next day, i had to force a shut down because it got stuck in a never ending boot screen. But as soon as i saw the desktop, i knew something was wrong. I have no idea what happened, but both, my intel drivers and amd drivers were not working properly. So i installed the Standard VGA drivers in intel. I tried using DDU to clean my system of drivers (both amd and intel) and tried a fresh install, but to no avail.

I have 3 questions:

1) Is this a common problem when trying to update AMD notebook graphics drivers ? Or is it just coincidence that it failed both times?

2) Is there any way to fix this ? I would really like to have it fixed as I kinda run a VM (Virtual Machine) which refuses to start as it doesn't detect hardware acceleration

3) In a desktop computer (i might consider building myself one), will i encounter a similar problem while installing/updating drivers ?

 

My other laptop is currently FreeNas (yeah..I'm thinking of building a NAS, so I'm testing it out)

 

System specs:
Old laptop:
CPU: Intel core i3 2310M

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7400m series (I don't remember and im not sure i can check without loading windows onto it )

RAM: At the time of purchase, 3GB , which i later upgraded to 8

OS: Factory installed win7 home premium

 

New Laptop: (what else do i call it ? )
CPU: Intel core i7 3632QM

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7670m
RAM: 8GB 

OS: I think it's an official version of Win7 professional, although it has an Ubuntu sticker on it.

**A thank you in advance**

[don_svetlio]

Honestly, this type of issue doesn't seem common. Give me a min to think about a possible solution

[don_svetlio]

Don't use Auto-detect utilities - those are crap. Download manually from AMD's website.

[PlayStation 2]

I'd install AMD drivers first, then install Intel drivers.

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

I'd install AMD drivers first, then install Intel drivers.

Worth a shot. Mobile drivers are kinda pissy about all sorts of things.

[David_Velho]

Hey guys! Thanks for replying.

Well, i did try updating with the manual download, but it didn't work. But i have a question though. Say for eg. i was building a system (which i might in the near future), will i have this same issue when i try to install/update a driver on a graphics card (say a Nvidia 970 and a 4790k ) ? I mean, in a way, the a 4790k and a 970 will be similar in terms of 2 display devices as compared to my current laptop's configuration, (which also has 2 display devices). So...will i get this same error on the desktop side ?

[PlayStation 2]

4 minutes ago, David_Velho said:

Hey guys! Thanks for replying.

Well, i did try updating with the manual download, but it didn't work. But i have a question though. Say for eg. i was building a system (which i might in the near future), will i have this same issue when i try to install/update a driver on a graphics card (say a Nvidia 970 and a 4790k ) ? I mean, in a way, the a 4790k and a 970 will be similar in terms of 2 display devices as compared to my current laptop's configuration, (which also has 2 display devices). So...will i get this same error on the desktop side ?

Not exactly. It's almost objectionable that desktop drivers are far less of a bitch than laptop drivers.

[don_svetlio]

6 minutes ago, David_Velho said:

Hey guys! Thanks for replying.

Well, i did try updating with the manual download, but it didn't work. But i have a question though. Say for eg. i was building a system (which i might in the near future), will i have this same issue when i try to install/update a driver on a graphics card (say a Nvidia 970 and a 4790k ) ? I mean, in a way, the a 4790k and a 970 will be similar in terms of 2 display devices as compared to my current laptop's configuration, (which also has 2 display devices). So...will i get this same error on the desktop side ?

Desktop drivers don't have such issues since those don't feature the GPU-switching parts that makes the laptop use the intel GPU at idle and the AMD GPU under load.

[David_Velho]

Thank you guys so much!

[Zodiark1593]

The Blender Cycles render engine requires an AMD GCN gpu or a CUDA capable gpu to utilize the hardware acceleration. The 7400M series and the 7670M are both rebrands of the old Terascale 2 architecture, and will not provide hardware acceleration for Cycles.

 

You may try Luxrender as it's compatible with Blender and can use OpenCL with older AMD GPUs. Otherwise, you're kinda stuck with CPU rendering, Sorry.

 

As for the desktop, so long as you use the latest drivers from the website (not from the CD), you should be fine. When I used the CD drivers (before my deskie was internet connected), CUDA crashed every time I tried. New drivers fixed that.