Samsung Ser. 7 Chronos 8700M HD Radeon Graphics Card Issue

I recently bought the Samsung series 7 chronos w/ touch from Best Buy, model number NP780Z5E-S01UB with an AMD Radeon™ HD 8770M Series GPU. The issue I am having, is that while it "appears" to be in the computer, there seems to be a question as to whether the driver is actually functioning.


In the device properties:
General Tab: "device is working properly"
Driver Tab:
Provider AMD Inc.
Driver Date 11/26/2012
Driver Version: 9.3.5.0.
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows hardware Compatability Publisher
Details Tab: AMD Radeon HD 8700 Series

Events: Timestamp/Description
1/15/2013 6:37:01 Device Configured (null)
Information: Device PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6600&SUBSYS_C0E6144D&REV_00\4&2901ac1b&0&0008 was configured.

Driver Name: null


^ THAT is one of my concerns, what does null mean? Samsung and Best Buy said it means that it is the factory installed driver and has received no updates because it is a pre-release driver. AMD is not even offering information on their site about it, beyond what it's capabilities -will- be.


Driver Name: null
Class GUID: {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
Driver Date:
Driver Version:
Driver Provider:
Driver Section:
Driver Rank: 0x0
Matching Device ID:
Outranked Drivers:
Device Updated: false

Resources: Conflicting Device List [ no conflicts]



If I click on "update driver" it just says driver is up to date. I uploaded the AMD autodetect software from AMD and it doesn't detect it. I am assuming because it's not a published product yet.


If I open the Catalyst Control Center and go to the bottom where the info tab is, it only shows AMD Home and AMD Software Update. There is no software or hardware tab to retrieve further information.


*Hardware information includes details about your AMD product, such as the graphics chipset, device ID, graphics bus capability, maximum bus setting, BIOS version, memory size, and total memory bandwidth. Software information includes details such as installed 2D and 3D driver versions, OpenGL version, and Control Center software version.


I was told by Samsung this morning that the reason those tabs don't appear in the catalyst control center is because it contains "time sensitive" information about the graphics driver that is not licensed to be shared yet. They are assuring me it works.


When I open the Catalyst Control Center in my computer, it shows it's running some things in "power saving" or not assigned mode, or in the case of Accuweather APP, high performance. If it wasn't working, I would "assume" the fact it shows its running my firefox browser would mean my browser wouldn't work when I change it to high performance as well?

Since the Intel HD4000 Graphics Driver is the default backup, I don't know how to determine if the AMD driver is actually working, or functioning, or the Intel is really doing it. I was hoping maybe someone could A) tell me how to determine this and 2) .. since I've never had an issue like this before, should I just return the computer if I have a currently unsupported pre-release graphics driver I can't verify is working? Neither Best Buy or Samgsung made learning about the pre-released Driver easy and it makes me wonder what I've bought here.

I appreciate any feedback, thanks!

I also have the same exact computer with the same problem. I've downloaded Steam and tried to use the demo of Just Cause 2 as a sort of benchmark. And it runs decently at regular settings but when i set the settings high it slows to a crawl, nearly unplayable. I know the AMD is capable to performing a lot better but i can't figure out how to make it the default graphics card.

I tried disabling the Intel HD 4000 graphics card in Device Manager, but that made it as if my computer had no graphics card at all.

Any help appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[h=2][/h]I recently bought the Samsung series 7 chronos [np700z5c] here in England has a Nvidia GT640M graphics, the graphicsdetails are hidden in the bios, but samsung support tell me them they are for service centres only. the graphics run very well i updated the driver from nvidia rather than samsung updater. By the way does your samsung get two bleeps on bootup and when using media player is a problem i cannot get to the cause or a satisfactory answer from samsung.

Samsung support confirmed to me today that the Graphics driver for the AMD Radeon™ HD 8770M Series GPU is NON functioning [its actually any model in the 8000 series].The driver will only work once AMD has released an update. It is being held up by a problem with Windows 8 compatibility. They do NOT have a time estimate on resolving this. So if you buy one, the intel graphics card is all you get for now!

While I have a feeling many of you already know this, there is a way to monitor the activity of your graphics drivers. GPU-Z Video card GPU Information Utility

I had Samsung in my computer remotely today. They were able to verify that the AMD 8700 series driver was indeed performing. I don't really understand why this wasn't suggested to me sooner, but better late than never. Also, if you go to Samsungs website, they have put the #NP780Z5e-S01 model on their site with all it's information, specs and price, as well as all current software and firmware offered to date. Series 7 15.6

jynksie said:

Samsung support confirmed to me today that the Graphics driver for the AMD Radeon™ HD 8770M Series GPU is NON functioning [its actually any model in the 8000 series].The driver will only work once AMD has released an update. It is being held up by a problem with Windows 8 compatibility. They do NOT have a time estimate on resolving this. So if you buy one, the intel graphics card is all you get for now!

Click to expand...

Interesting information but just have to correct you one thing. I have the NP780Z5E-S01 with the AMD 8870M and it is completely usable. Just need to select the Switchable graphics to 'High Performance' and games like Planetside 2 run really well. I am looking forward to fully AMD supported drivers for some extra FPS. There is one game I have problems with (only using the Intel HD 4000 card) but it is pretty old so counting that as a one off as everything else seems fine.

Hey everyone!
I have the Samsung NP780Z5E-S01UB version with the 8770m card. I can confirm the driver problem. I get strange benchmark results:
- 3dmark11 score for GPU averages around 1950 (this seems like the correct value) BUT my physics score is very low, around 500 which is what's expected from the HD4000 integrated graphics
- Starcraft HOTS fps values are not affected by the "Configure Switchable Graphics" settings "Power saving" or "High performance" in the "Catalyst Control Center"

So it seems that the videocard does kick in, but not always.... Any idea how to disable the HD4000? Nothing useful in the BIOS settings.

I checked the temps, nothing goes above 60-65 Celsius, so not a throttling issue. (Sidenote: why does the CPU only reach 2.2Ghz and why doesn't Turbo Boost kick in?)

Any news about a driver update? Fluent Starcraft gaming experience was a big part of choosing this otherwise super sexy laptop. So far dissapointing customer service.

Well, thats the beauty of laptops - most things are automated, including switching between integrated graphics and graphics card, and very little laptops have an option in bios to disable integrated graphics, so if graphics drivers will be bad, then you are fu**ed. Your only shot is try to reinstall os, maybe try some older drivers. I kind of want to buy a new laptop myself, but that double graphics thing in laptops is a big concern that scares me, because its not very reliable, and you dont really get much more battery life from it.

IMPORTANT UPDATE

Everything works fine, the drivers are fine. All performance benchmarks as expected. The problem was that the Fn+F11 toggle was set to ON!
This initiated silent mode (which is actually very useful and really virtually silent).... The laptop accomplishes this state by turning off all the fans, so of course with just passive cooling serious throttling occurred.... (as low as 800Mhz per core on a full load prime95 stress test)

Why doesn't this have an LED marker like the Wifi and Fn Locked buttons do right next to it????? Oh my god, I wasted like 2 whole days of my life on this s**t...
Oh yeah, and it doesn't show up ANYWHERE inside Windows power settings weather or not silent mode is on or of, on the contrary my fan settings were set to active...

mihajovics said:

IMPORTANT UPDATE

Everything works fine, the drivers are fine. All performance benchmarks as expected. The problem was that the Fn+F11 toggle was set to ON!
This initiated silent mode (which is actually very useful and really virtually silent).... The laptop accomplishes this state by turning off all the fans, so of course with just passive cooling serious throttling occurred.... (as low as 800Mhz per core on a full load prime95 stress test)

Why doesn't this have an LED marker like the Wifi and Fn Locked buttons do right next to it????? Oh my god, I wasted like 2 whole days of my life on this s**t...
Oh yeah, and it doesn't show up ANYWHERE inside Windows power settings weather or not silent mode is on or of, on the contrary my fan settings were set to active...

Click to expand...

I was thinking of purchasing this laptop and I noticed you said you play SC2. Are you saying despite everyone saying the graphics card is non-functioning, my game will run smoothly on high settings? I wanted this laptop mainly for the graphics card and if it doesn't work I don't want to waste my time buying it.

Yes, the video card and drivers are definitely working fine.
Would it run smoothly? Short anwser: yes. Long anwser: it depends on what you mean by smooth. (All the following is meant in 1920x1080 resolution.)
Smooth is very subjective. I personally am VERY sensitive to lag and prefer very high fps throughout the game, this translates into average fps staying above 60 all game long, and I demand that it never-ever should drop below 30, not even in huge 4v4 end game battles for a single moment. I think this goal is only achievable on medium or lower settings.
Don't get me wrong, it is definitely playable on High, it's just not what I personally would call smooth. I even played a 2v2 on Ultra and it was easily playable, I just prefer it super-super smooth.
Single player wold easily run smoothly on High possibly even Ultra.
There are minor lag spikes that are caused by accessing data on the hard drive... the 5400rpm hard drive is pretty slow so I do plan to swap it to a 250Gb Samsung 840 in the future.

EDIT:
I played around with the setting in a big 3v3 replay with lots of action. On High, usually fps was 50-60 and rarely dropped under 30, only in big battles and for very short times.

mihajovics said:

IMPORTANT UPDATE

Everything works fine, the drivers are fine. All performance benchmarks as expected. The problem was that the Fn+F11 toggle was set to ON!
This initiated silent mode (which is actually very useful and really virtually silent).... The laptop accomplishes this state by turning off all the fans, so of course with just passive cooling serious throttling occurred.... (as low as 800Mhz per core on a full load prime95 stress test)

Why doesn't this have an LED marker like the Wifi and Fn Locked buttons do right next to it????? Oh my god, I wasted like 2 whole days of my life on this s**t...
Oh yeah, and it doesn't show up ANYWHERE inside Windows power settings weather or not silent mode is on or of, on the contrary my fan settings were set to active...

Click to expand...

Unbelievable!!! I can't believe how i missed this one! I knew something was amiss with the overall performance of my laptop. This yielded a significant performance increase, games load up significantly faster and the fps count is visibly increased. Great post mate, thanks a lot indeed.