I have an HP Probook 4730s laptop with a ATI Radeon HD 7470M graphics card. It's the DDR5 version, running on Windows 7 SP1 64bit.
When gaming I get awful performance (10-20fps on ultra low settings, as can be expected of a laptop with entry-level GPU) but I recently noticed that I was running on the integrated Intel HD Graphics card.
I enabled graphics switching in the BIOS, disabled automatic switching in the Catalyst Control Center, and enabled High Performance Mode under all circumstances.
Using HWInfo and GPU-Z, I now see that when running a game (Arma 2 today) it indeed uses 100% of the ATI GPU. But it also shows that GPU running at 100Mhz, and GPU memory at 40.5Mhz. It occasionally peaks at 750Mhz (the advertised clock speed) for half a second or so, and then falls back to 100Mhz. Ingame performance is now even worse (5-10fps on ultra low settings) than when using the integrated GPU.
Could the ATI still be running in some power safe mode?
I've already tried installing ATI Tray Tools, but that Bluescreens when I run it. I also tried disabling the integrated graphics, but my BIOS won't allow me to do so, and when disabling it in Windows my screen just remains black. I have tried to install Riva Tuner, but I can't get that to do anything or report anything on my GPU. As I said, HWiNFO and GPU-Z both agree on the GPU and its utilization, but won't allow me to change any settings AFAIK.
The BIOS is patched, and ATI won't allow me to install the latest Catalyst Control Center. It complains that I don't have a compatible graphics card (presumably because it's HP branded). I already have the latest HP graphics drivers installed.
Any way to disable the power safe mode on the ATI card? Force it to run at higher speeds? Or maybe overclock it manually?
One thing I would like to try is using an external monitor. I've read somewhere that the main laptop screen always uses the integrated GPU (in line with my experience disabling that). Without an external monitor, there is no way to set the default screen in Windows, it just reports no screen attached to the ATI card.
Update 1
I have installed the http://leshcatlabs.net/ ATI drivers, which doubled the memory clock to 81Mhz! 😛 Still awful performance ingame, and in my Catalyst Control Center I do have the Overdrive options now but they are all greyed out and also stuck at 100Mhz. Also ATI Tray Tool still Bluescreens even with the latest (although third-party packaged) ATI drivers.
The temperatures stay at 38-44C, and the clock speed does not fluctuate with temperature changes.
Best Answer
After more long hours of searching I came across this.
Installing MSI Afterburner and raising the clock speeds with 1Mhz ended up fixing the problem for me!
Now I run that same Arma 2 at 50-70 FPS :D Thank you, David from 2011!