Dell Inspiron 3521, Late 2012, Windows 8.1 has driver and speed problems

Lachiepower0402

Estimable
Mar 21, 2014
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0
4,560
My first problem is that in Device Manager it shows that I have two graphics cards, but that is definitely not correct because 2 two graphics card would not even fit in the laptop, the first graphics card is says I have is a AMD Radeon 8730M and after that is lists that I also have a Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000, which is a terrible graphics card, so I am hoping that I have the AMD. But I might be wrong because in updates in control panel it always installs Intel graphics driver updates. Can someone shed some light on this?

Also my laptop is very temperamental with speed, sometimes when I am browsing the internet and opening new tabs is lags and this also happens when I am using file explorer to copy and paste things. It also happens when I try and type something, but not very often. At the moment by MacBook Pro seems to be faster than this laptop! The CPU Idle is around 7-9%. The computer has 4GB of RAM.

Any help would be appreciated,
Lachlan Fullagar
 

digitaldoc

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You have one graphics card, the Radeon 8730M, and the HD4000 is the integrated graphics. HD4000 graphics are better than integrated from years ago, but still not good for gaming.

Try Defraggler to defragment. Also, run CCleaner for a general cleanup.
 

Lachiepower0402

Estimable
Mar 21, 2014
17
0
4,560
Ok, so that is a change of heart, I didn't realise my computer is correct that I have to graphics units, intergrated and another. How is that the computer is always using the Intel and shows it in the tray. How do I disable the Intel and always use the AMD.

I will use CCleaner and Defraggler as well.
 

Lachiepower0402

Estimable
Mar 21, 2014
17
0
4,560


That is defiantly 'Dell Hell'. I will have to do what was suggested on the that forum, but selecting the preferred GPU in Catalyst Control and selecting the preferred GPU in games.

I am running CCleaner now and it has been running for about 3 minutes, which is good because their is obviously a lot of crap on my laptop. After that I will run Defraggler.
 

Lachiepower0402

Estimable
Mar 21, 2014
17
0
4,560


I seemed to of fixed that problem now, I decided to just reset my laptop after backing up important documents, now I am playing COD Ghosts on very low settings, doesn't look the best, but the FPS is perfect, no lag!
 

Lachiepower0402

Estimable
Mar 21, 2014
17
0
4,560
This problem seems to never end, I have another problem with the graphics now! I updated the driver in windows update because their was a optional update for the AMD graphics card and after I did it I got this error.

Heading: HydraVision

AMD's desktop manager is being unloaded because an
AMD display driver is not currently running.

If you have administrator privliages, click "Reset" to
revert to default display settings. Select "Cancel" to
close this window with no changes.

To permanently remove an installed AMD display driver,
use the Add/Remove Programs control panel.

I have tried clicking Reset and I still get the same error. The error also comes up when I right click on the desktop and select AMD Catalyst Control Center. Also the button under this named "Switchable Graphics" has disappeared, which means I cannot set which games I want to be high performance and use the AMD anymore.

Sorry for the long post, but I couldn't explain it any simpler.
 

Lachiepower0402

Estimable
Mar 21, 2014
17
0
4,560


I uninstalled just the control center then I installed the whole .exe from the dell website which was for my computer. Then I restarted my laptop and I right clicked on the desktop and I still do not have the option for switchable graphics, then when I clicked on the first option about opening control center I got a different message saying something about no amd graphics driver was installed then I clicked ok and then I got the previous message explained in the last post
 

Lachiepower0402

Estimable
Mar 21, 2014
17
0
4,560
I tried installing the driver off AMD and when the install finished I got this error

Install Complete (warnings occurred during
installation). View log for details.

Button: View Log.

Then I clicked view log, then the log displayed everything was installed correctly but the display driver. At the bottom of the log it said:

Driver Install: the specified driver package was not installed for matching devices

I will try and install another dell driver package that is on the drivers page.

EDIT:

I uninstalled everything AMD related, then installed the dell driver and then I restarted.

I right clicked on the desktop and both options were available. But when I clicked on switchable graphics, I got two errors.

Load MMdriver application has stopped working

Catalyst Control Center: Host application has stopped working
 

Lachiepower0402

Estimable
Mar 21, 2014
17
0
4,560


Like I said in the previous post I tried the AMD driver, which was from that website and it gave errors, which I have listed.