Updating laptop video drivers

[boozie]

I have Hewlett-Packard dv6-3143us which has out of date video drivers per steam/Diablo 3, but when I go to update through AMD it says it's not compatible. I assume this is because of the switchable graphics (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 + Intel HD) or something that HP has ghetto rigged.

Going to the HP website, the latest drivers are:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=4332734#N342

which are 2 years old.

In general this computer has been a disappointment trying to run D3 and seems to have occasional heating issues (yes I've dusted).

 

[Ketchup]

Most likely you are going to be stuck with the latest drivers offered by HP or Windows update.

That's just part of the wonderful world of laptops!

 

[Puppies04]

I have Hewlett-Packard dv6-3143us which has out of date video drivers per steam/Diablo 3, but when I go to update through AMD it says it's not compatible. I assume this is because of the switchable graphics (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 + Intel HD) or something that HP has ghetto rigged.

Going to the HP website, the latest drivers are:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=4332734#N342

which are 2 years old.

In general this computer has been a disappointment trying to run D3 and seems to have occasional heating issues (yes I've dusted).

In my experience (and we are talking about owning 4 DV4s and 2 DV6s) HP laptops suck at cooling. This seems to happen for 3 reasons.

1. They shoehorn GPUs into chassis that were never designed to handle that sort of heat output.

2. They fit inadequate colling solutions compared to other similar sized chassis.

3. Their thermal pads seem to degrade faster than any other manufacturer, whether this is accelerated by the elevated temps inside the laptop is anyones guess but I would suggest it is a large part of the problem.

If you are beginning to have cooling issues now then keep an eye on temps because if the pads are starting to degrade you will be left with a paperweight pretty soon (or at least a laptop that runs at 80% fan while web surfing and either thermally throttles or shuts down while attempting to play games)

Anyway, back to your original problem, is the laptop not recognising the GPU is present because optimus has switched it off? Is there any way you can run a game to make sure the HD5650 is active when checking compatibility?

 

[boozie]

Anyway, back to your original problem, is the laptop not recognising the GPU is present because optimus has switched it off? Is there any way you can run a game to make sure the HD5650 is active when checking compatibility?

That is a good question. I assumed it was working as intended, but I will verify. As far as the cooling goes, what are my options beyond dusting? Will a cooling pad do any good? Can I do something inside the case that isn't difficult?