Can't update G73jh graphics drivers!

[kk_mw]

I know this laptop is like 7 years old now, but the whole time I had it I was never able to update the graphics drivers once. And even when it was brand new it didn't even run Team Fortress 2 very well. Anyway I decided to try and see if I could get it to run some games better now by updating the drivers and having no luck. I probably spent over a week doing different things and researching, and no matter what there is no solution to updating the drivers. I have the stock graphics drivers right now, V8.683.0.0. I updated the bios (213), and the vbios (od2). I read countless posts about what to try and nothing worked. I uninstalled drivers, deleted temporary files with ccleaner, rebooted into safe mode, ran the amd crap cleaner and ddu, rebooted, tried to installed a different catalyst version (I have tried versions 10.4, 11.5, 11.9, 11.10 Preview 3, 11.10 preview 2, 15.7.1 without dotnet45, Non WHQL Win8.1-Win7-Radeon-Software-Crimson-ReLive-16.2.1-Sep20, WHQL-Win8.1-Win7-Catalyst-15.7.1-Oct30, Radeon-Software-Adrenalin-18.3.4-MinimalSetup-180325_web, 12-1 ccc, 12-3 ccc, 12-6-legacy, ETC ETC ETC.....) I have Windows 7 64 bit by the way. Anyway I follow all the steps, tried to clean install into ALL of those versions and NONE of them worked. And they all just said the same thing in the logs..."AMD Display Driver Final Status: Fail " and at the bottom the error messages just say "Driver Install: the installation failed." Which tells me NOTHING! The driver is from 2009 and I bought it in 2010 brand new for $2000, so the drivers could never ever be updated? I know that's wrong though because of so many posts I've read saying they were able to update the drivers after going through a ton of hoops such as what I described above (update bios and vbios, clean install with older versions of ccc- which are hard to find now, by the way- etc.) SO WHY!?!?!?!?!? WHY DOES NOTHING I DO WORK!?!?!? I THINK I READ EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF INFO ABOUT THIS PROBLEM THAT'S AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET AND TRIED EVERY SINGLE THING SUGGESTED AND IT DIDN'T CHANGE A THING! I EVEN CONTACTED ASUS AND THEY COULDN'T HELP ME. SO WHY? WHY WERE SOME PEOPLE ABLE TO UPDATE IT YEARS AGO AND NOT ME??? WHY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

[xeromist]

Is this still the original Windows install? You could try creating a portable Windows USB flash drive and set the BIOS to boot from that temporarily to see if a clean Windows install makes a difference. This isn't a Windows installer; I'm talking about installing Windows on the flash drive itself. Then you can change the BIOS back when you're done and your original install will work again.

I've used this tool to create a windows 10 boot key for diagnostic purposes. It doesn't activate on unfamiliar hardware but it works well enough for troubleshooting.
https://easyuefi.com/wintousb/

[Gps3dx]

xeromist wrote:
Is this still the original Windows install? You could try creating a portable Windows USB flash drive and set the BIOS to boot from that temporarily to see if a clean Windows install makes a difference. This isn't a Windows installer; I'm talking about installing Windows on the flash drive itself. Then you can change the BIOS back when you're done and your original install will work again.

I've used this tool to create a windows 10 boot key for diagnostic purposes. It doesn't activate on unfamiliar hardware but it works well enough for troubleshooting.
https://easyuefi.com/wintousb/

winPE of 7/8/10 doesn't inc many frameworks (.NET, VC++, InstallShield etc ) needed in order to install many packages like heavy-duty drivers & applications ( like adobe products, MS office etc )....
if you were talking about more well-packed winPE which exist on the web ( if you know how to find it ) then it might be a slightly different story - but still most of the installers won't work as they should during or after installation. ( I don't link nor state names here, since it is partially not very licensed product ).

IMHO, @kk_mw should look into his event viewer to see what kind of errors he gets when installing a driver/application...
based on the info he provided - there could be 1M possible solutions...
1. clean install of windows is always a good idea - see my SIGNATURE for a guide for "how to clean install windows - UEFI method".
2. installers got cache hidden somewhere under c:\... cleaning them fixes a lot of issues...
3. using DDU ( Display Driver Uninstaller ) to force clean any remnants of GPU driver, can solve many issues.
4. check & fix windows install, clean its cache etc.... can also help
5. install VC++ and .NET frameworks
6. reboot into SAFE MODE then try to install ( although in the case of NVIDIA driver I do NOT recommend it... AFAIK its just not possible ).

P.S @kk_mw - if you'd cut with shouts & instead provides more technical info - the most help you would get.

[xeromist]

Gps3dx wrote:
winPE of 7/8/10 doesn't inc many frameworks (.NET, VC++, InstallShield etc ) needed in order to install many packages like heavy-duty drivers & applications ( like adobe products, MS office etc )....
if you were talking about more well-packed winPE which exist on the web ( if you know how to find it ) then it might be a slightly different story - but still most of the installers won't work as they should during or after installation. ( I don't link nor state names here, since it is partially not very licensed product ).

That tool is not real win PE. It takes a regular downloaded ISO and allows it to install on a USB drive. I only used it briefly for troubleshooting but other than loading slowly it seemed to be a fully functional Windows 10.

[Darnassus]

ATI Mobility™ Radeon® HD5870 with 1GB GDDR5 VRAM?

[kk_mw]

Thanks for the replies so far, everyone.

Darnassus wrote:
ATI Mobility™ Radeon® HD5870 with 1GB GDDR5 VRAM?

Yes it's ATI Mobility™ Radeon® HD5870.

Also I could try a clean install, but I have a lot of programs and stuff that I need for school including a couple ebooks that are stupidly DRM protected to only work on one computer so I don't know if that would make them stop working. I don't think I'll really have time to do a clean install for a while either...also I only have like a 1 or possibly 2 gb usb stick right now lol

@Gps3dx I tried everything you said besides the clean install, and the error logs are so vague they don't say anything but "AMD Display Driver Final Status: Fail " and at the bottom the error messages just say "Driver Install: the installation failed."

Lol sorry I went crazy at the end and started typing in all caps, it's just that I spent a good 5 full days doing nothing but trying to get this working at least, rebooting like 100 times, going in safe mode, waiting for installers and uninstallers to finish. I even got every windows update because I read on some site that you had to have windows fully updated and I haven't ever downloaded a windows update since I got the laptop in 2010 because I turned off windows updates instantly when I got it so it took about a full day to download all those alone and it didn't work either. etc... etc...all this just to have the same thing happen over and over. Also I messaged asus on facebook lol and they replied back like once a day and after days of replying back and forth for 1 message a day they just said I was supposed to have the stock drivers lol..................................................and then it took like a week for my account to get activated on this site and the message you get before it's activated is "you were permanently banned for reason: none" so I was starting to think they didn't let new members join. dark souls runs like poop too. anyway I hate this

[Gps3dx]

kk_mw wrote:
Thanks for the replies so far, everyone.

Yes it's ATI Mobility™ Radeon® HD5870.

Also I could try a clean install, but I have a lot of programs and stuff that I need for school including a couple ebooks that are stupidly DRM protected to only work on one computer so I don't know if that would make them stop working. I don't think I'll really have time to do a clean install for a while either...

@Gps3dx I tried everything you said besides the clean install, and the error logs are so vague they don't say anything but "AMD Display Driver Final Status: Fail " and at the bottom the error messages just say "Driver Install: the installation failed."

got another idea for you...
I can tell you that fresh windows installation is the best way to bypass many weird issues...relative, IMHO it's the best non-time consuming option you have.
nontheless, you need to retain current windows due to your school needs.

so how to retaine current win and performing clean install at the same time ? dual boot !

1st you need to use a partition manager out-side of windows, to reduce current windows size on HDD inorder to allow a free space for the 2nd windows

reboot using a standalone bootable usb ( like partedmagic, latest FREE version from 2013 ) and RESIZE by decreasing your windows partition size to be ~10-20% larger then its current occupied space...then when you have at least 60-70GB free, make another NTFS PRIMARY partition.
You can also use any bootable linux distro like ubuntu ( w/o installting, just pick "try ubuntu" i.e using it as livecd ) which got gparted - the same partition manager as partedmagic.

then install whatever windows you want onto that 2nd partition - then try to install AMD's drivers onto that 2nd windows.
finally, to be able to dualboot you can go with 2 options: ( if you're EFI booting ) by pressing ESC/F8 after reboot to launch the boot-selection screen you can choose the OS to load.
you can also use app like EasyBCD ( for "legacy boot", NOT UEFI boot, the free version is enough ) to add the 2nd /1st windows to the bootloader of windows, so that after POST, when windows starts you get a "selection screen"....
you can do that as well while booting into windows installation disk -> going to the fix/troubleshoot, open CMD then perform "bootrec /scanos" or "bootrec /rebuildbcd".

[kk_mw]

Thanks a lot for the guide! However, since I just finished finals for school and because my hd was nearly full I just decided to backup what I wanted on another external usb hard drive (which took many hours) and do a clean install. This was a mistake though because when it's installing windows it keeps stopping at 0% and I've also done a thousand things to try and get passed this. Then after a while it says files are missing or something. Tried a million things with bios settings to see if that helped but no, also cleared or formatted the hd in the command prompt with the disk thing or whatever. So I guess the windows installation dvd I burned was corrupted, so I got some windows 7 home premium 64 bit iso from Softpedia and I'm going to try to burn it with ImgBurn at the slowest speed after this stops being stuck at 0% and the error message pops up again... Gonna have to clear the dvd rw I used and reuse it lol cuz I only have this one. fml. so just trying to update the graphics drivers I can't even use my computer at all anymore because I formatted the hard drive because i thought the installation would actually work. I'm using someone else's computer right now to type this. god why

update: ok I stopped being stubborn and went and got a usb stick and the Expanding Windows Files part isn't stuck at 0% and is actually updating. Lol I didn't want to buy a new usb and tried to do it without one, but it just wasn't happening. So I think I will be able to finish clean installing windows now and then we'll see if I can update the drivers soonish I hope.

update 2: really happy right now because after like 8 years I was finally able to update the graphics drivers lol. and it's the latest/last version. so I hope games run better now, will update again when I try some. some of the drivers I got off the asus site didn't work but I don't really care for now since it doesn't seem to be anything important. also my screen seems to flicker near the top sometimes...lol

update 3: games run great besides the flickering... seems kinda bootleg except i paid $2000 at one point. lol but they run a lot better so I'm happy idk why the screen is flickering maybe it can be fixed.

[xeromist]

Sounds like a pain but I'm glad you were able to get it working. Not sure about the flickering. You could try turning on v-sync but with such an old machine you'd have to have all settings on the very lowest to even hope to cap out v-sync.

[kk_mw]

xeromist wrote:
Sounds like a pain but I'm glad you were able to get it working. Not sure about the flickering. You could try turning on v-sync but with such an old machine you'd have to have all settings on the very lowest to even hope to cap out v-sync.

Thanks! The flickering went away on its own eventually. So yeah, if you ever have this problem where you can't update the drivers just back up the files you want to keep and clean install windows off usb and don't even try to fix it any other way lol. and update the bios and vbios. Then you can use the latest radeon mobility graphics drivers using the automatic detection thing they have on AMD. Now the laptop works amazingly for games and stuff, really glad I finally got it even if it took me a while to figure out what to do.