# Dell Inspiron 15 with Windows 8 is not recognizing AMD RadeonHD 8670M



## Builds (Aug 27, 2013)

*Hi.*

Yesterday, I restored my Inspiron 15 to it's factory settings.
Post-reset, I installed all drivers for Windows 8 directly from the Dell website *except* for the AMD driver which I took from the AMD website (just wanting to get the latest directly from the source, I guess). I also used that "Dell Detect" thingy to make sure I have all the latest drivers for everything.

After installing, everything worked great, but I realized that when the display turns off / when I shut down the laptop / when I close the lid, *it does not turn off the computer or hibernating it or making go to sleep* - it just keep running but there is no display, total darkness. Trying to press the power button / F4-F5 / any other button-pressing related solution did not work, only hard-reset.

Googling this issue, I found that it is very common, and many people with almost brand new Dell laptops, just like me, have encountered the same problem. After much research, I found some suggested solutions. In most of the solutions offered it was said that doing so would cause the system to *mainly use the Intel Graphics HD card and not the AMD*, meaning that for games and graphics, the AMD won't matter, which doesn't seem to be fair after paying extra exactly so I can have a dedicated card.

Either way, I started with the first which was using Windows Update. After checking the Windows Update updates list, I saw 2-graphic card related items - something called *Graphics Adapter WDDM*, one for the AMD card and the other for the Intel Graphics HD. After installing this update, I realized I can successfully turn off the laptop.


*Once I turned it back on this morning, I got a pop-message:*










*I then realized that it just simply doesn't see/use/detect the AMD card.
This is how my AMD Catalyst looks right now:*











*Looking at Everest, you can see it only sees the Intel Graphics HD:*




















*However, device manager is still listing the AMD card as if it's properly working:*











*And if you look at the event log, you can see that initial driver was installed right after the Windows 8 fresh install I made a day and a half ago, and then there's other events, last night, around the time when I installed the Windows Update thingy:*











*Any suggestion or help you can provide will be great, 
Thanks in advanced! *


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## MPR (Aug 28, 2010)

This is a recurring problem for users of computers with "power-saving" dual video processors. It seems that unless you use the right drivers and install them in the proper order that you will get the sleep/hibernate problem.

Driver conflict amd radeon 8670M on windows 8.1, windows can't - Microsoft Community 

Another thread here addresses a similar issue. Note that the drivers suggested probably won't be the ones for your system unless its model number is exactly the same so you will have to obtain the proper drivers for your system.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f108/laptop-doesnt-sleep-or-hibernate-876977.html


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## Builds (Aug 27, 2013)

Tried it, does not work, and when I try the second solution in the first link (the one suggesting using Display Driver Uninstaller it says its at my own risk since they're not sure it's compatible with switchable AMD cards or whatever it means, and I was too scared to try :ermm:


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## MPR (Aug 28, 2010)

Switchable graphics were designed so that the laptop would use the low-power-consumption GPU for tasks that didn't require much graphics processing but then switch to the more powerful processor if the user wanted to run more graphics-intensive tasks. Unfortunately, this seems to have worked better in theory than in application. The sleep/hibernate issue isn't limited to a single brand of laptop or specific GPU either but seems to be inherent to the technology itself. Search "switchable graphics sleep problem" and you will see hundreds of threads in tech forums about the issue.


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## Builds (Aug 27, 2013)

Wow ok, that sounds bad, I wish the store I bought it in would tell me that prior to purchasing cause I basically have a product I paid good money for that I can't use...

And I did see there ALOT or threads about it, question is - is it solvable?


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