New switchable graphics driver for win-7 W500 (11-15-2010)

[richk]

There was a new driver package released. It shows up on the Lenovo site, but not yet in system update. I installed it on my machine after taking a backup. It seems to work. I am posting the same note in the T500 forum, since it uses the same driver.

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... d616ww.exe

[Chatbox]

For completeness, here's the info: http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... d616ww.txt

[dlai]

Thanks for posting this. It fixed my problem of a black screen after waking up from sleepmode.

[gpvillamil]

This new driver broke an application that I use for work (Max/MSP from Cycling '74). Previous driver worked fine, new driver completely prevented Max/MSP from opening an OpenGL render context, all kinds of mayhem ensued. I rolled back and now everything is good again.

I've successfully avoided the black screen issue by going to the Lenovo power manager, global options, under Events toggle the checkbox for apply to all power plans, and select everything - power button, Fn + F4, lid. By toggle, I mean switch it on and off at least once, ending with the checkbox ENABLED. I think a registry key somewhere is not being set until this happens.

[rernst]

I was running this version of the driver / catalyst control panel package and recently ran into a problem where my system (W500 running Win7 x64) was stuck in the energy saving graphic mode.

I reinstalled said driver package and was eventually able to get back to a functional switchable graphics mode but was then experiencing the infamous "MOM" and "CLI" file package errors that are tied to .Net 1.1 vs .Net 3.5 or .Net 4.

I downloaded the latest Catalyst Control Panel from the AMD web site (I chose the one that included Hydravision and Hydragrid). After a successful install, I was finally back to functional switchable graphics, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the new Catalyst Control Panel now has the following:

- Automatic switching of graphics correlated to power source [battery/Integrated graphics (Intel) and AC / Discrete Graphics (ATI)]. Yes that's right! I can pull my power cord and my system automatically switches to my Lenovo PowerManager energy saving profile as well as to the Mobil Intel 4 graphics card and visa-versa.

- Hydravision with virtual desktops
- Hyrdagrid

I also picked up 0.1 points in the Windows 7 User Experience rating.