Aspire E15 AMD switchable graphics problems

I recently purchased a brand new Aspire E15 E5-553G-T03K laptop after having a world of problems with my Asus one.
I specifically chose this machine for the Radeon R8 M445DX 2Gb graphics adapter.

No matter what settings I chose the system only wants to use the built in 512Mb R5 adaptor so it is slow as hell with low resolution.

How can I force it to only use the dedicated graphics adapter for everything and disable the other one?

I have downloaded the latest Catalyst software 18.2.1 which has a world of confusing switchable graphics options but it still defaults to the build in card. Additionally the software now tells me that it is a R7 M340 adapter and not the R8 M445 as it says on the machine.

My resolution is terrible if I go above 1366x768 (which my 7 year old laptop can do).

Please help, I want to use the hardware this machine came with!

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JackE

Open Device Mgr. What display adapters are listed? Jack E/NJ

jamlev

AMD Radeon R7 M340
AMD Radeon R5 Graphics

No mention of the R8 that it says this machine is equipped with. And it wont use the R7, I have an 8 year old resolution on a brand new laptop!

JackE

Those specs suggest it is a E5-553 model. Jack E/NJ

jamlev

It is irrelevant what model it is. On the front of the machine it says E5-553G-T03K.

The question remains though, how do I use the graphics card instead of the crappy built in one?

JackE

That may be so. But if the machine is mis-labelled, the installed hardware may not respond correctly to the software and drivers. Your vendor may have an explanation for this apparent discrepancy. Jack E/NJ

Aspire E5-553
----AMD RadeonTM R7 Graphics, H.265 4K decode, H.264 4K encode, OpenCLTM 2.0,
OpenGL® 4.4, Microsoft® DirectX® 12, support Dual Graphics architecture
----AMD RadeonTM R5 Graphics, H.265 4K decode, H.264 4K encode, OpenCLTM 2.0,
OpenGL® 4.4, Microsoft® DirectX® 12, support Dual Graphics architecture

Aspire E5-553G
----AMD RadeonTM R8 M445DX with 2 GB of dedicated DDR3 VRAM, supporting
Shader Model 5.0, Microsoft® DirectX® 11.2/12, OpenGL® 4.3, OpenCLTM 1.2

jamlev

I've gone into BIOS and the CPU is an A10 9600P R5, no mention of the second graphics card.

The machine is labelled as Aspire E5-553G.

I have reinstalled drivers for the APU from here: https://support.amd.com/en-us/download

It just puts catalyst 18.2.1 back on the machine and I'm back at square one running on the low powered integrated graphics adapter.

jamlev

Anyone? Or have I brought a lemon?

JackE

>>>I recently purchased a brand new Aspire E15 E5-553G-T03K>>>

If it was me in this situation, I'd return the machine to a vendor as defective for a refund. Jack E/NJ

jamlev

Well it isnt 'defective' as such, just very badly designed.

I mean what is the point of having a 2Gb graphics adapter when the machine only uses the default one which is painfully inadequate.

JackE

>>>I recently purchased a brand new Aspire E15 E5-553G>>>

OK, how about a defective design then? Either way, the other adapter isn't working whether it's a G or not. Don't mess with it anymore. Return it to the vendor for a refund ASAP if you can because warranty service to fix the problem or the bad design will take a lot longer. Jack E/NJ

NFITC1

I have a similar model (it's a F55F, not a T03K) and have had nearly identical problems with this and past laptops I've had. I can provide two comments:

1. Use the Acer-provided video drivers. What I think is happening is the hardware is actually two chips working together that are the equivalent (in spec) to the R8, but the default drivers from AMD/ATI don't recognize this behavior because it reports the graphics family based on the hardware id embedded in the GPU core. The Acer drivers are slightly modified versions of the AMD drivers from whenever version it was from that reports their specific chip configuration as an R8 rather than the R7 + R5 that it actually is. This does make some design sense, but it is really annoying to the user because most laptop manufacturers don't keep their graphics drivers up to date. I hate it when my video drivers inform me of an update, but I have to decline because I know it will hurt my performance. When I have the ATI drivers installed it tells me I have two different R7s, one of which is the M340.
I believe they are a single chip with two cores as evidenced that there is only one heat-sink on the control chip that leads to the monitor on the motherboard (at least on my model).

2. Does the monitor report that it can display higher than 768p? If it's not a 1080p monitor it's going to look fuzzy at higher res.
2a. Does the blurriness only affect text? Is this your first laptop on Windows 10? If so, there may be a different issue. Win 10 does a LOT of things wrong when it comes to graphic interface. One of these is DPI scaling of fonts and there's not a from-Microsoft fix for it. There is a third-party fix (google "windows 10 dpi fix" without quotes) that fixed it for me.

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