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I can't get my switchable graphics cards working on my Acer 4820TG laptop. It came installed with Windows 7, but I've installed the RTM build of Windows 8. I have to keep the "Graphics" setting on the BIOS set to "Discrete," if it's set to "Switchable" the screen turns black after the boot animation is complete. The machine has an Intel graphics card and an AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5650, and I know that the Intel card is working. I've seen it work a couple of times with Windows 8 installed, but for some reason it just doesn't anymore. I know that it's not broken, because when I plug in a secondary monitor, and move the cursor to the right, I can see it on that monitor.

Are there drivers or something I need to install? I've tried a number of drivers and utilities from Acer's website, none of which have fixed the problem.

Normally your laptop vendor will provide a special driver that supports switching between the integrated and discrete graphics. (Normally this driver comes from the non-Intel side, i.e. AMD in your case, but they will only release it through your laptop's vendor.)

Installing generic drivers from either AMD or Intel will disable the other card and may cause the graphics output to be read from the incorrect chip. If you have graphics drivers for Windows 7, you can try installing that using the "I have disk" option (google it).

Intel seems to be keeping up with their reputation as the supplier of the worst drivers in the world, so you may have to wait for quite a while before official Win8 drivers will come out.

I had the same problem with an HP laptop, also with AMD graphics, and I'm afraid that, in my case, the only "solution" was to wait for official graphics drivers made for windows 8, because all of the AMD drivers needed to either disable switchable graphics, or made the Catalyst Control Center not to work at all.

I am very disappointed with AMD graphics, at least mobile versions, and i doubt i will ever get an AMD gpu again. Besides, the HP drivers are not the latest, and i don't expect for them to update them soon again. But at least now they work.

In other words, your best "solution" will be to simply wait for official drivers from Acer, specifically made for windows 8. Oh, and trying to use win 7 versions didn't work either, so just wait.

Another more complicated option, is to use the popular "Leshcat / Unifl" drivers, which are custom and unofficial, but they may work for you. Just be careful and read the instructions carefully. More info here, and here for instructions. Lots of people have find them very useful and it may be your solution if Acer doesn't do they work and give you proper drivers.

I in fact tried them, and they worked fine (at least much better than the win 7 versions I had), but when the official drivers from HP got out, i just switched back to them.

Give them a try, you can't lose much at this point.

go to this site: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

down in "Manually select your driver" add:

1. Notebook graphics


2. Radeon HD Series


3. Mobility radeon HD 5xxx Series


4. select your preferred OS and click display results

Download installation package and install. This should work.