Windows – How to install AMD driver for ATI Dynamic Switchable Graphics in Windows 7

amd radeondriversgraphics cardwindows 7

I have a ATI Dynamic Switchable Graphics on a HP Pavilion g7 (hp pavilion g7-1246ef).

I had some graphics problems with this VGA card in Linux and I found (here) that I have this double-VGA type of GPU (if my terms are correct). I gave up using Linux on that PC but now I want to have a bit more control in Windows (7). The system works fine in windows, but sometimes the cooler gets noisy for minute tasks and I guess that is because the discrete card is used: I want to be able to control the way this works.

It seems that I have 2 VGA controllers:

  • One on-CPU Intel for energy-efficiency
  • One discrete card (an ATI/AMD Radeon HD 6470M in your case) for rendering.

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I searched here for the Catalyst Control Center utility (the one presented here)

But when I try to install the catalyst_mobility_32-bit_util.exe, I get this:

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When I try to use the AMD Driver Autodetect (from here), the same error happens (although for some reason this utility chooses the 7xxxM series instead of 6xxxM series).


Following Ramhound's comments, I searched specifically for an OEM driver (AMD driver modified by HP) and found (here only 64-bit version for Win7 and Win 8 versions. The Win8-32bit manager installs on the system but then reports that it cannot find any drivers.


To sum up, the AMD Catalyst Install Manager can be installed from here (called "Latest AMD Catalyst™ Drivers for Radeon™ R9 200, R7 200, HD 7000, HD 6000 and HD 5000 Series") but then it looks useless to me. I cannot run it, although it looks installed in add/remove list. The installation procedure has these stages:

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But the folder C:\Program Files\ATI Technologies is empty!

What should I do?


Can this be because of the Intel Graphics and Media Control Center which is installed?

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Best Answer

I had the same problem while ago.

I assure you that your AMD card is not working properly, even not showing any problems in device manager. The diference between me and you is that I am on a Dell computer.

What I did was installing the drivers from leshcatlabs. You will need to do a clean up first (you can find it under UNIFL>SUPORT>MANUALS).

Leshcat gets the latest AMD and Intel GPU drivers and does the bridge between them.

Dell's official drivers for switchable graphics are very outdated. Thats why I use Leshcat now. If you try any direct driver download from AMD website, it wont work properly!