Switchable Graphics driver install nightmare

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ab2012

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Sep 2, 2013
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So I have an Alienware M17x R4 with an Intel HD 4000 igpu and a Radeon 7970m dgpu running on Windows 7 Home Premium x64. Basically the laptop crashed while running a 3D program and corrupted the display drivers. I loaded the latest drivers from Intel (3165), installed them and then rebooted. I then loaded the 13.8 beta drivers from AMD's site. The problem I'm having is that the reboot after loading AMD's drivers doesn't complete successfully. It hangs on the windows logo. On the random occasion that the laptop boots past the logo, within 30 seconds I am faced with the dreaded black screen with a blinking cursor on the top left.

As for what I've already tried (I've spent around 5 days on this now...), I've uninstalled all display drivers a multitude of times followed by a scan by Driver Fusion, finishing with a scan of the registry by CCleaner after which I would reinstall drivers again.

I have tried, I think, all combinations of the following drivers:
AMD: Dell Stock, 13.1, 13.4, 13.6, 13.8 beta 1, 13.8 beta 2 (including leshcat variations of these), and AMD's latest Enduro driver (which I believe is 12.11)
Intel: Dell stock, 2653, 2957, 3062, 3071, and 3165.

None of the combinations worked and the farthest any of them got was to the desktop before being struck by the black screen.

Help please?
 
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ur6beersaway

ur6beersaway

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Apr 18, 2013
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I guess it took out more than the drivers. options:

1) reinstall win-7

2) install win-8 (will take care of the hd4000) driver
included.
3) Keep trying 13.3 ect..http://www.guru3d.com/files_categories/videocards_ati_catalyst_vista_win_7.html
 
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ab2012

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Sep 2, 2013
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Thanks for your response! I forgot to mention that I've gone through 3 reinstalls of Windows 7 already. I just did the fourth, got chipset drivers, etc. and got to the graphics drivers off the link you posted but the problem still persists. Windows 8 unfortunately isn't an option for me at the moment. The thing is, each gpu works fine when the other is disabled or uninstalled although Windows Aero remains off which leads me to believe that the hardware is fine and functional. If memory serves, early releases of switchable graphics drivers loaded the same display driver for both the igpu as well as the dgpu. I'm not sure if that is supposed to be the same for the newer drivers though.
 
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ab2012

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Sep 2, 2013
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All good info. The one difference I noted was that when both graphics chips were enabled, both would show up in device manager regardless of the mode they were in (low power or high performance). As a matter of fact, both gpus are always present at the moment since I can't get the installation far enough along that I can change the graphics to fixed 7970m mode.

Edit: Not sure if its relevant, but installing catalyst drivers and rebooting disables both gpus in device manager. I managed to check this within the 30 sec. time limit before, what is now, the inevitable black screen crash.

Edit 2: I enabled Boot Logging and found that the last driver to load is IntcDAud.sys. I'm guessing that this is Intel's audio driver. I also found that the driver that loads after this is the generic Microsoft usb driver. I went on to disable the Intel HD Audio driver in device manager but it didn't really do much. On a side note, I can't get Windows to clean boot either. Where do I go from here?
 
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ur6beersaway

ur6beersaway

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Apr 18, 2013
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Not sure...Flash BIOS a10. reinstall windows. then drivers.. that might not even solve the problem. Open a trouble ticket with dell=http://www.dell.com/support/Contents/us/en/19/category/Product-Support/Dell-Subsidiaries/alienware-support-site sorry nothing is working.
 
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ab2012

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Sep 2, 2013
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10,510


I flashed A10 Bios and when things remained the same I went on ahead and flashed A09 as I believe that was what the laptop originally shipped with. I could have sworn that windows enabled aero as it was shutting down during a reboot but it ended up freezing on the windows 7 logo. I suppose it's about time to stop trying new ways to fix this and to just spam with reinstalls until it goes right :) .

Update: Still not fixed but I managed to get windows to boot and have all the graphics options present in the right click menu. It involved reinstalling Windows 7 and installing the graphics drivers immediately without installing chipset drivers. I loaded the latest 3165 drivers from Intel's site, installed, then rebooted. I then loaded Amd's Enduro drivers and after a few crashes I was met with a blank black screen. On a hunch I plugged in an external monitor with an hdmi cord. This didn't visually accomplish anything, but after a hard reboot, I was able to get into windows. The problem now, is that the laptop bsods after the same 30 sec. interval caused by atikmpag.sys. Probably best not to reinstall everything this time, I guess....
 
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ab2012

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Sep 2, 2013
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10,510
So I think I finally got the laptop stable and working. This is what I did that fixed it and hopefully it'll work for anyone else who has or gets this problem.
First I went into safe mode and got rid of all amd and intel display drivers using driver fusion and rebooted. I then went into device manager and kept uninstalling any residual drivers that would auto install (with my wireless card turned off).
Then I loaded intel's 3165 drivers and rebooted. Then I loaded AMD's 13.8 beta 2 drivers. I got a couple warnings on install but the log showed nothing. On reboot, I got the atikmdag.sys BSOD but I ignored it and went into safe mode.
I used driver fusion to get rid of only the intel drivers. I rebooted and went back into safe mode.
Finally, I reinstalled the 3165 intel driver and rebooted. On this final reboot, from past experience I found that the screen would go black when loading the new display drivers only if the AC power cord was plugged in so I unplugged it after windows showed the desktop.
As predicted, the screen flashed a couple times but it didn't freeze and voila! It was working. I'm not sure but I think something was going wrong when the catalyst installer was adding atikmdag.sys to the intel driver set. It seems that the error doesn't happen if atikmdag is there before the intel driver though...
Anyways, hope this helps and to those who helped me, thank you!
 
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