I can't get my switchable graphics cards working on my Acer 4820TG laptop. It came installed with Windows 7, but I've installed the RTM build of Windows 8. I have to keep the "Graphics" setting on the BIOS set to "Discrete," if it's set to "Switchable" the screen turns black after the boot animation is complete. The machine has an Intel graphics card and an AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5650, and I know that the Intel card is working. I've seen it work a couple of times with Windows 8 installed, but for some reason it just doesn't anymore. I know that it's not broken, because when I plug in a secondary monitor, and move the cursor to the right, I can see it on that monitor.
Are there drivers or something I need to install? I've tried a number of drivers and utilities from Acer's website, none of which have fixed the problem.
Best Answer
Normally your laptop vendor will provide a special driver that supports switching between the integrated and discrete graphics. (Normally this driver comes from the non-Intel side, i.e. AMD in your case, but they will only release it through your laptop's vendor.)
Installing generic drivers from either AMD or Intel will disable the other card and may cause the graphics output to be read from the incorrect chip. If you have graphics drivers for Windows 7, you can try installing that using the "I have disk" option (google it).
Intel seems to be keeping up with their reputation as the supplier of the worst drivers in the world, so you may have to wait for quite a while before official Win8 drivers will come out.