Everything is broken

[Chairman_Tiel]

I just installed a gpu update because the laptop wasn't showing up the radeon hd graphics card. I did this through Device Manager's 'update device driver' function.

I restarted the pc and now nothing works. Almost everything gets an APPCRASH error on start up. IE did, too, once it loaded a webpage, but I found a workaround

what the heck is happening?

[Chairman_Tiel]

32 bit programs look like they work, but everything else is kaputt..

[Professor Fenway]

Did you turn it off and on again?

I believe this is likely due to failure of graphics. Give system specifications, graphics cards, and software version. If you can, post specific error logs from crashed applications. I'm no programmer, but fr0st may be able to trace the source of the problem.

EDIT: 32 bit? That makes sense. Is the update you installed for 32 bit systems? 64 bit applications WILL NOT WORK with 32 bit hardware/software, because 64 bit has a LOT more processing power and efficiency than 32 bit. In fact, 32 bit systems can only handle 4 GB of RAM. Look at that. If that doesn't help, take above advice.

EDIT 2: I reread it. NEVER EVER EVER update it through device manager. You likely downgraded the software as well, using drivers already present but outdated on the GPU. Find the ATI site and download the updates from there from now on.

[Chairman_Tiel]

Actually, restarted quite a bit.

I just rolled back the gpu driver after reading on google that it was probably memory corruption and now things are going smoothly. The only reason I updated was because there was a distinct possibility I've been using my built-in HD 3000 instead of the 6650m. I'm going to see if I can go back to my factory GPU driver.

Thank you for replying.

[Chairman_Tiel]

This is infuriating. Only a specific version of the driver software appears to work, one I grabbed off an overclocking website. AMD's and the original driver package from Acer produce the undesirable results.

I'm vastly irritated by this because Catalyst Control Center refuses to acknowledge that there's even a second graphics card in the machine. So I have no idea whether my stuff is actually following the Switchable Graphics list or not.

[Chairman_Tiel]

blue screens everywhere

[Avenger_7]

That's one of the reasons I like nVidia cards, they update their drivers more often. That said, switchable graphics is a sort of grey area that I don't know too much about. As best I can tell, the computer only boots the drivers for the other card when you really need it, so it may not show up normally in the list of devices. I DO know that there is a way to disable switching by editing the registry, I just can't remember what it is...

[Professor Fenway]

Is the card plugged in correctly? There is many steps you need to take. You first uninstall the old graphics drivers using device manager and shut off computer. Then you physically install the new one and reboot the computer. Insert the disk that the GPU should have came with to install the drivers and appropriate paths. It may work. There will always be conflicts with multiple GPU's if installed simultaneously, so make sure to uninstall the old one. Once the drivers for the new one are in, it will switch to that.

There are A LOT of possibilities here. Is your power supply sufficient to power the GPU? Is the GPU incompatible with your motherboard? We need more information to know for sure.

Make SURE to uninstall the old graphics card, I mean EVERYTHING about it. Otherwise conflicts and errors everywhere.

[Chairman_Tiel]

So I mean like

the 6650m shows up in device manager, or it did show up, but now I uninstalled the driver and it was 'standard vga device' until I reinstalled catalyst which now refuses to work because it doesn't recognize the graphics card and meanwhile intel hd is in the corner laughing at my suffering ;-;

I'm trying amd's uninstaller and then installing the latest catalyst package from the site.

edit: Fenway, it's a laptop. The graphics card came with it.

[Avenger_7]

When in doubt, go to Google.

[Professor Fenway]

Ok. UNINSTALL THE INTEL HD INTEGRATED GRAPHICS CARD. REINSTALL CATALYST AND DRIVERS FOR THE 6650M. SHOULD WORK.

If that doesn't, I cannot help any more. I could fix it if I had the computer in my hands, but I don't, and explaining what to do for you is like trying to get a monkey to help solve a crime. You simply will not listen and try suggestions, or give information I ask for.

Do you have;

CRASH LOGS

SPECIFICATIONS OF THE LAPTOP

THE GRAPHICS CARDS MODELS

32 OR 64 BIT SYSTEM

I can help more with that info. Thank you.

[Chairman_Tiel]

Ok. UNINSTALL THE INTEL HD INTEGRATED GRAPHICS CARD. REINSTALL CATALYST AND DRIVERS FOR THE 6650M. SHOULD WORK.

If that doesn't, I cannot help any more. I could fix it if I had the computer in my hands, but I don't, and explaining what to do for you is like trying to get a monkey to help solve a crime. You simply will not listen and try suggestions, or give information I ask for.

Do you have;

CRASH LOGS

SPECIFICATIONS OF THE LAPTOP

THE GRAPHICS CARDS MODELS

32 OR 64 BIT SYSTEM

I can help more with that info. Thank you.

Nope

Aspire 7750g, I forget which.

There's an IGP on the i5 2410m, and a discrete graphics card 6650m

It's a 64 bit system.

The Intel HD graphics are part of the whole 'Catalyst Switchable' thing, can't have one without the other. I uninstalled Catalyst and that's where the blue screens started coming in when I attempted to reinstall it. I did, however, run it in safe mode --> Use the official Catalyst uninstaller --> Reinstalled 12.7 because 13.4 and .3 do not work --> Profit. I have no clue what was wrong, but it appears to be working now.