Windows 7 2 Display adapters on my Acer laptop

julio99

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2010
Location
Niagara Falls, Canada
I've been getting an error saying "AMD Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered". Wile trying to troubleshoot this I notice that my Acer 8943g laptop has 2 drivers listed in device manager. One ATI Mobility Radeon and one Intel. Am I supposed to have 2 graphics cards like that? I tried uninstalling the Intel card , but Windows Update re-installed it after reboot. There has to be an answer to this. I'm just not seeing it. I hope someone can tell me what I'm supposed to do with the Intel driver. The specs call for Mobility Radeon HD 5650, but both drivers are listed in Acer's driver support. If I'm supposed to uninstall one of them please tell me how to stop it from coming back. I'm using Windows 7 HP x64.
 
Check the system specifications for your device before doing this! Many new laptops are coming pre-loaded with a on-board integrated video graphics card and a dedicated graphics card for more intensive graphics. For instance, the Dell XPS 15z is a mid-range laptop that comes with a dedicated gaming card and also has an integrated video card for Aero graphics. Why is this done? For the most part, on-board graphics are included with the motherboard to reduce battery consumption when the dedicated card does not need to be used. This is now a standardized way of building laptops for some manufacturers, especially when selling laptops with internal batteries (rather than external easily removable batteries). You should definitely check to see if you have an on-board card before simply uninstalling it. If Windows is picking up on it, you probably do have one. You will notice a distinction between "Graphics" and "Gaming Graphics" when measuring the Windows Experience Index (WEI) under Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System.

Many laptops are sold under the same model with different configurations. For example, I do not see any mention of an internal card in a review of the Acer 8943g, but they may have simply neglected to include it in the review because it was not worth mentioning.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
[FONT=&quot]The specification says Dual independent display support. This is what Acer calls the 2 graphic cards. I am not supposed to uninstall either one according to them. I got this info from them via the Chat Support. Actually, for once in my experience the dude I got was actually very helpful and best of all I could understand him completely. Thanks Mike for your help and support. I reloaded both drivers and have yet to see the error again, so hopefully that fixed the issue.[/FONT]
 
Back
Top Bottom