[SOLVED] Geforce GT425m doesn't seem to work

[joerv007]

Hi guys. I am hoping that someone can offer me some assistance or some suggestions on the following problem I am having.

A few months ago, I bought a second hand gaming laptop. The laptop is branded as StyleNote but from looking in the system settings, I understand that it is in fact a Clevo B5130M.

As far as I am aware, my setup is as follows:

OS: Windows 10 Pro(build 18362)
Processor: Intel i7 M640
RAM: 8gb
Video: Nvidia Geforce GT 425M

When I got it, I clean installed Windows 10 and installed the latest Geforce drivers. I was not very impressed with the performance. World of Wardships plays better on my Microsoft Surface Pro 3. I did a bit of research and discovered that this graphics card has something called Optimus which switches between Intel HD graphics and the Geforce graphics. I tried setting it to run using the Geforce graphics by default and then the system went in to the Windows Basic Driver. It appeared that whenever the system tried to use the Geforce graphics, it crashed and reverted to the Basic driver instead.

I decided to blank the computer again and install windows 10 afresh. I then installed the latest drivers from the Clevo website I noted that there are only drivers for Windows 7 and not 10. I also noted that there was a driver for the "VGA" button on my keyboard. This appeared to have the purpose for switching between Intel HD and Geforce graphics. In installed the latest Geforce drivers again and exactly the same thing happens; the computer runs with Intel HD graphics and then crashes to Basic when I try to use the Geforce.

I am hoping that someone will have some idea of that is wrong here. The OS is detecting the Geforce graphics card and says that it is working properly. Geforce experience is listing it under "my rig" too. Can anyone help me with how I can get this running properly.

 

[DSzymborski]

It may be detecting, but if it's crashing, it's possibly that the discrete GPU is simply defective at this point. It's a very, very old laptop, nearly a decade old, and laptop GPUs will frequently die in this manner. Outside of making sure the drivers are correct and looking at your power saving settings, there's just not a lot you can really diagnose here.

And the performance you're getting isn't weird, unfortunately. The 425M is still slower the integrated graphics in some of the better Surface Pro 3s (faster than the integrated graphics in the i3, but slower than the ones in the i5 or i7).