ASUS K550IU RX 460 not working on games

brenoppr · January 15, 2018

TL;DR

If you really don't have time to read my post and help me solve my problem just answer me this: can I claim a DOA refund on my laptop if the dedicated GPU isn't working with any games, even though almost everyone else who bought the laptop has bumped into this issue?

I apologize in advance for any grammar mistakes I make, since this will be a big text and english isn't my main language.

Introduction and Laptop Specs (you can skip this part if you want)

I recently bought an ASUS K550IU for 500 pounds. I needed a laptop for school, but I also wanted one that could be used for gaming. Since this laptop came with a RX 460, I thought it was a steal and bought almost immediatly. These are the full specs:

Processor: FX 9830P Quad Core APU with R7 integrated graphics

RAM: 8GB DDR4, of which 7GB are for the processor and 1 is for the R7 graphics.

Storage: 128GB SSD + 1TB Hard Drive

Dedicated Graphics Card: RX 460 4GB

BIOS Version: 300

Problems I'm having

Basically the dedicated graphics card isn't being used by any games, all of which are using the R7 graphics. On top of that, If I try and update my Radeon drivers to any version past 17.4.3 both graphics card stop working and device manager will report Error Code 43, that reads "Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems." Also, I don't think this has to do with this problem but I can't change the resolution of my screen if I'm using any monitor or TV that isn't my laptop's one.

I googled "drivers problem ASUS K550IU" and I found out I wasn't the only one having this issue: I've found at least 5 posts on forums on 2016 about these problems, and I'm sure I only couldn't find more because this isn't a particularly popular laptop.

The only game I've got to work with the RX 460 was Overwatch, and that was when I was using the 16.6 drivers that came with the laptop. Also, applications like Windows Device Manager, GPU-Z and Afterburner can all identify the RX 460.

The two things that bug me the most here are Afterburner reporting there are 4 RX 460 connected, Afterburner reporting 0 MHz speeds, GPU-Z reporting 0 MHz memory clock and GPU-Z marking my card as incompatible with DirectX.

At last, Rivatuner won't show statistics on any game, and if I try and use Dolphin (the Wii emulator) and choose DirectX as the backend I won't get the option to choose the RX 460 as my graphics adapter.

What I've tried doing

I have already tried reinstalling Windows, but the situation stayed the same. I've tried disabling the R7 Graphics, which led into the system thinking there was no graphics card connected. I've tried assigning high performance profiles on the Catalyst Control Center, which still didn't fix the issue. I've also tried contacting ASUS support, but they still haven't responded to me yet, even though I contacted them 3 days ago and they said they would get back to me in 48 hours.

What I want to know

So what should I do know? Is there anything I can stil do? I'm on BIOS version 300, the latest released by ASUS on October 2016. I'm Brazilian, but I'm on London currently and I will be here until January 31st. So is there any ASUS official store here where I would be able to get technical support? And could I instead ask for a refund claiming the product was dead on arrival, since I got it less than 30 days ago?

If you have read this far I'm truly grateful, and if you have any idea on how I can solve my problem please tell me, because I've already spent a big part of my time in London just trying to get this GPU to work.