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HELP! AMD Catalyst update broke my PC - How best to reinstall Windows 7?
MilesAhead:
But in any case, this will now become my secondary backup and testing machine (as you suggested), as I'm taking the opportunity to upgrade and also untether myself from the desk. I'll be getting an HP ZBook 14 G2 Mobile Workstation instead.
-dr_andus (September 14, 2015, 05:49 PM)
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That looks like quite a machine. If it is anywhere near as heavy as my Toshiba I recommend caution when slinging it over your shoulder. Tendinitis has a tendincy to sneak up on you. I had to switch from backpack and computer case to putting all my stuff in a wheeled suitcase. My left are keeps going numb on me. The recuperation by resting it is very gradual and any exertion or lifting of weight sets it back months. One of the security guards at the school told me a lot of faculty get it as they have large Laptops and lug them to and from work every day.
It does look like a nice machine though. :)
dr_andus:
4wd - Thank you very much for the detailed explanation! All the advice in this thread was indeed very helpful. Thank you all! :Thmbsup:
I'll be getting an HP ZBook 14 G2 Mobile Workstation instead.
-dr_andus (September 14, 2015, 05:49 PM)
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That looks like quite a machine. If it is anywhere near as heavy as my Toshiba I recommend caution when slinging it over your shoulder.
-MilesAhead (September 15, 2015, 08:33 AM)
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It hasn't arrived yet, but it's a 14" machine weighing around 1.7 kg (the upper limit of the ultrabook category), which is pretty much the size and weight of my HP Chromebook 14, which I've been carrying around in my backpack. I don't have far to go, so for my use case it is manageable.
I did consider the lighter ultrabooks, especially the Dell XPS 13, the HP Spectre x360, and the Lenovo ThinkPad T450s, but at least in the UK they didn't come with big enough hard drives and/or RAM, and/or were a lot more expensive. I also wasn't sure if some of my favourite Windows apps would be usable on such super high resolution screens. Finally, I'm not ready to make the step up to Win8 and Win10.
What attracted me to the HP ZBook 14 is that it is still relatively portable (compared to the 15.6" and 17" laptops and workstations), while remaining powerful with a lot of storage, and that is easily expandable. Apparently there is a bay inside for a second hard drive; all drives and the battery can be easily swapped (and of course extra RAM added).
The weaknesses are the lower resolution (1920 x 1080 14" ISP screen), apparently the keyboard is mediocre, and it's not as much of a looker as the aforementioned competitors. But I can live with that, considering what I'm getting for the price.
tomos:
What attracted me to the HP ZBook 14 is that it is still relatively portable (compared to the 15.6" and 17" laptops and workstations), while remaining powerful with a lot of storage, and that is easily expandable. Apparently there is a bay inside for a second hard drive; all drives and the battery can be easily swapped (and of course extra RAM added).
-dr_andus (September 15, 2015, 03:28 PM)
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that does sound very good
The weaknesses are the lower resolution (1920 x 1080 14" ISP screen), apparently the keyboard is mediocre
-dr_andus (September 15, 2015, 03:28 PM)
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notebookcheck liked the keyboard. And I think a lot of software UI's are not yet ready for UHD (U for ultra - or whatever they call it), so you might be better off with the FHD/IPS screen (which also gets a positive review btw).
dr_andus:
notebookcheck liked the keyboard. And I think a lot of software UI's are not yet ready for UHD (U for ultra - or whatever they call it), so you might be better off with the FHD/IPS screen (which also gets a positive review btw).
-tomos (September 16, 2015, 03:48 AM)
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Thanks, I missed that review. Though note that it is for the 1st gen. device, while mine is going to be G2, so I can only hope that they've kept the same keyboard. This review of the G2 didn't like the keyboard. But it probably depends on what you compare it to. Nothing's gonna measure up to some of the Thinkpad or Apple keyboards.
dr_andus:
Instead, when I first unpacked the PC, the instructions said to use the enclosed "DVI to VGA adapters" to plug my two VGA monitors directly into the video card's DVI ports.
Then when I wanted to add a third monitor years later, I had to use a "DisplayPort to VGA adapter/converter" to also plug into the video card. That's when my troubles started, as the DisplayPort adapter would occasionally fail, and then I would unplug and replug it to get it going again. Possibly the AMD card didn't like that, and it's also possible that all that plugging/unplugging dislodged the card a bit (and maybe that's why reinserting it fixed my problems this time).
But it's also possible that three monitors is just too much for this video card. They are all of different age, brands, and models. Since the clean reinstall I have only added one monitor, so maybe that's why it's playing nicely so far.
-dr_andus (September 14, 2015, 05:49 PM)
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Just to bring this saga to an end, and also if by any chance someone else out there starts having the same problem with this same model (ACER Aspire M7811 PC with AMD Radeon HD 5770 video card), I have narrowed down the problem to plugging the third monitor into the AMD card using a DisplayPort to VGA adapter/converter.
It just seems that this Radeon card and the driver that comes with it can't handle a third monitor with DisplayPort. As soon as I plugged it in (after my fresh Windows install), the AMD Catalyst software struggled to recognise it, and when I tried to rotate one of the 3 monitors into portrait mode, the Catalyst software either crashed or it failed to even detect one or two of the monitors, and it would rotate the one in the wrong direction. I have been able to make the three monitors work with an earlier version of the driver in the past (before the crash), but that's when the system started malfunctioning, and gradually developed more and more problems.
I bought this PC in October 2010, so maybe those were early days for supporting 3 monitors? Maybe this particular AMD card is inadequate for such a task? Or maybe my system was inadequately configured with all three monitors running via the AMD card? I'm not sure what to take away as a learning point from this whole experience. Maybe I have to research more carefully in the future whether systems I buy support more than 2 monitors.
Anyway, the HP ZBook 14 G2 Mobile Workstation I'm getting is supposed to have a powerful video card (AMD FirePro™ M4150), able to support one VGA and one DisplayPort (alongside the onboard screen, so that will make three displays, which should hopefully suffice).
P.S. Just found out that the HP ZBooks can use a single DisplayPort to link multiple additional monitors, so maybe it can be a lot more than 3 after all:
DisplayPort v1.2 supports “Multi-Stream Transport,” which allows multiple video streams across a single DisplayPort connection. This is commonly referred to as DP 1.2 “daisy-chain” feature where multiple displays may be driven by a single DisplayPort connector.
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