U330 Switchable Graphics Driver Windows 7? [ Edited ]

[nicholse86]

Hi all,

Just received my new u330 with switchable ATI Radeon HD 3450 switchable graphics. Made the switch to Windows 7 last night and have just been running into a slew of problems, most importantly pertaining to the lack of being able to access the switchable graphics.

I have checked the main support webiste and have found pretty much every other driver that I need except the switchable graphics driver. I do understand that the Thinkpads have the switchable graphics drivers on the download site, but there currently isn't for Ideapads.

Anybody resolve this issue? Will I have to go back to windows vista in order to use this ability? Pretty crappy if thats the case. Will I even be able to get it to work again even If I do switch back??? I would really appreciate any input you guys can provide.

Thanks!

[gan Guru]

So far i have not seen any drivers available for switchable graphics for Windows 7. So i'm pretty sure that drivers is not yet available and if you need switchable graphics that much you have to return to Vista. Since Windows 7 is very close i'm sure it will be available soon so might be a waste of time switching back to Vista instead of living without switchable graphics for a few weeks. It should not be a problem going back to Vista using the recovery disk from Lenovo or use a standard Windows Vista installation DVD and use the OEM product key provided with your computer. You will not be able to activate Windows Vista over the internet, but can call the activation phone number from Microsoft and should be able to activate Windows using the automatic service on the phone.

Lenovo do not yet have all the drivers for Windows 7. Some people think Windows 7 is released at this point, but that is not correct. The reason why Windows 7 is available at this time for msdn/technet subscribers is for testing and development. That way Lenovo and others have some time to develop drivers and stuff like that before the release date in October. Using Windows 7 at this point and you hva to accept that some drivers are not yet ready and some issues still exists.

[nicholse86]

Gan,

Thank you very much for your input. I think you probably nailed it on the head. And yes I did get windows 7 through msdn. Im sure you can understand how drivin I am to get it up and running though, but in due time im sure a driver will be in place around the time of the October release. Its just unfortunate that the switchable graphics driver is the only driver that I have run into problems with, but after looking back at this post http://forum.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-and-U-series-Laptops/U330-Switchable-graphic-won-t-work-after-s... it seems that a windows 7 service pack will be what fixes this problem and not a direct download from lenovo. Time will tell

Thanks again

[gan Guru]

If you tried to install a driver for switchable graphics at this point i assume you used the one for Vista?

This is a different issue tho since it's not really a problem that has to be fixed. The driver for Windows 7 isn't available yet. Using the Vista driver you are using a driver created for another OS and not compatible with Windows 7. The current driver was never created to work with Windows 7. If there will be a separate driver for Windows 7 or a new driver that works with both Vista and Windows 7 i don't know, but i'm sure there will be a driver available soon. Maybe a beta driver will be available before released like with many other Windows 7 drivers from Lenovo that is at currently at beta stage and available for download.

At this point it's just the switchable graphics driver from Lenovo that is missing and not a issue that has to be fixed in a service pack for Windows 7. There will probably take months or maybe even more then a year before we see a Windows 7 servicepack. The OS is not officially released yet so way to early thinking about a serivcepack.

btw i use Windows 7 as well and turned off switchable graphics in BIOS and just use the ATI. I actually did this using Vista as well since when switchable graphics is enabled you don't get a display using a external montior connected with DVI before you are logged on to Windows. Set to discrete only i get a display during boot on the external monitor connected to the DVI.

When ATI/Lenovo finish/release a driver for Switchable Graphics i'm sure the problem is solved. Hopefully the driver will work fine and not as buggy as the first switchable graphics drivers for Vista was. At this point there is no known problems that require Windows 7 SP1 to make switchable graphics work....it's just a driver that is not yet available.

[nicholse86]

Gan,

Switching to strictly the ATI graphics through BIOS would be great. Could you give me the steps neccessary to get this set up? So first I need to start my computer, while its starting click one of the function keys to get into BIOS, and switch to discrete graphics?

UPDATE: Gan, got my ATI graphics card running. I feel much better now, but I will continue to keep my eyes open for the switchable graphics driver for windows 7 in the future

Thanks for all your help and input on the subject, you've been very informative.

[gan Guru]

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nicholse86 wrote: 

Thanks for all your help and input on the subject, you've been very informative.

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No problem and glad you found it helpful

[Acaedan]

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[bananaman · Accepted solution]

The nearest to an official answer is that official Windows 7 drivers will be available on or about Microsoft's general release on October 22nd.

In the meantime you can help out by testing the Windows 7 beta drivers.

[jmayer88]

Are there still no Windows 7 switchable graphics drivers for the U330?

Has anyone found a workaround to get the Intel card to be on (and ATI off) so that battery life isn't abysmal?

Thanks