I recently bought the Samsung series 7 chronos w/ touch from Best Buy, model number NP780Z5E-01UB with an AMD Radeon™ HD 8770M Series GPU. The issue I am having, is that while it "appears" to be in the computer, there seems to be a question as to whether the driver is actually functioning.

In the device properties:

General Tab: "device is working properly"

Driver Tab:
Provider AMD Inc.
Driver Date 11/26/2012
Driver Version: 9.3.5.0.
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows hardware Compatability Publisher

Details Tab: AMD Radeon HD 8700 Series

Events: Timestamp/Description
1/15/2013 6:37:01 Device Configured (null)

Information: Device PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6600&SUBSYS_C0E6144D&REV_00\4&2901ac1b&0&0008 was configured.

Driver Name: null

^ THAT is one of my concerns, what does null mean?

Driver Name: null
Class GUID: {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
Driver Date:
Driver Version:
Driver Provider:
Driver Section:
Driver Rank: 0x0
Matching Device ID:
Outranked Drivers:
Device Updated: false

Resources: Conflicting Device List [ no conflicts]

If I click on "update driver" it just stays in the searching mode. I uploaded the AMD autodetect software and it doesn't detect it, or reconize it.

If I open the Catalyst Control Center and go to the bottom where the info tab is, it only shows AMD Home and AMD Software Update. There is no software or hardware tab to retrieve further information.

*Hardware information includes details about your AMD product, such as the graphics chipset, device ID, graphics bus capability, maximum bus setting, BIOS version, memory size, and total memory bandwidth. Software information includes details such as installed 2D and 3D driver versions, OpenGL version, and Control Center software version.

I CANNOT access *Hardware

The catalyst Control Center is in my computer and it shows it's running some things in "power saving" or not assigned mode. If it weren't working, I would "assume" the fact it shows its running my firefox broswer would mean my browser wouldn't work?

I don't know what other information to provide. I apologize if this is overkill, but there seems to be a lot of confusion about this AMD graphics card in this computer and Samsung and Best Buy don't appear to be well versed with this problem.

Is there any where else, or anything else I can do to ensure what I have is indeed in my computer being recognised and functioning?

Samsung support confirmed to me today that the Graphics driver for the AMD Radeon™ HD 8700M Series GPU is NON functioning in the Samsung NP780Z5E model. The driver will only work once AMD has released an update to Samsung. It is being held up by a problem with Windows 8 compatibility, again, according to Samsung. They do NOT have a time estimate on resolving this. So if you buy one, the intel graphics card is all you get for now! Feel free to call them to confirm it!

While I have a feeling many of you already know this, there is a way to monitor the activity of your graphics drivers. GPU-Z Video card GPU Information Utility

I had Samsung in my computer remotely today. They were able to verify that the AMD 8700 series driver was indeed performing. I don't really understand why this wasn't suggested to me sooner, but better late than never. Also, if you go to Samsungs website, they have put the #NP780Z5e-S01 model on their site with all it's information, specs and price, as well as all current software and firmware offered to date. Series 7 15.6