Installing Intel GPU drivers on Surface and other laptops

Background

Why should you care about updating GPU drivers?

• Bug fixes
• Game and 3D-graphics performance improvements
• Inclusion of full OpenGL, OpenCL, Vulkan, and video codec libraries necessary for some games and applications
• Compatibility with the latest Intel Command Center which allows:
  • disabling adaptive brightness (can cause annoying flickering)
  • disabling panel-self-refresh (can cause glitches on SP4)
  • enabling custom aspect ratio resolutions for gaming and office applications
  • enabling more granular power & performance profiles
  • switching between limited range (16-235) and full range (0-255) HDMI color profiles resulting in better colors and contrast on certain monitors/home theatre sets

Applies to:

• Intel HD 4000 series
• Intel HD / Iris / Iris Plus 500 / 600 series
• Intel UHD / Iris Plus Graphics
• Intel Xe Graphics
• 6th – 11th generation GPUs found in SkyLake / Kaby Lake / Kaby Lake-R / Coffee Lake / Coffee Lake-R / Amber Lake / Apollo Lake / Gemini Lake / Whiskey Lake / Cannon Lake / Ice Lake, Comet Lake, and later CPUs
• For Microsoft Surface:
  • Pro 3 / Pro 4 / Pro 2017 / Pro 6 / Pro 7 / Pro 7+
  • Laptop 1 / Laptop 2 / Laptop 3 (without AMD) / Laptop Go
  • Book 1 / Book 2 / Book 3 (with or without NVIDIA)
  • Go / Go 2

What is tricky about the install?

Intel generally makes device driver software updates available on a 4-8 week cadence – far more frequently than OEMs such as Surface, HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. But these updates are generic and not typically supported by OEMs since they haven’t been validated with the specific features on the OEM systems. So customers can either use old officially validated OEM drivers or new less-validated intel.com drivers.

Intel provides .exe device driver install packages that run a simple compatibility checks. If this compatibility check finds previously installed device driver software that shipped as part of an OEM system (Microsoft, Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.) it may refuse to install and direct the user to seek updates directly from the OEM. One reason for this is to set customer expectations on which company is providing support. For an OEM system, it is the OEM that provides support, not Intel. Another reason is that the intel.com update has a risk of breaking something since it has not been validated on the OEM system.

For customers that need the features/fixes in the newer intel.com driver, the compatibility check is easy to bypass by temporarily uninstalling the current Intel GPU driver and installing the Microsoft Basic Display Driver in its place. This method is 100% reversible via uninstall/roll-back and does not require deleting the old GPU drivers.

Disclaimer: intel.com drivers are not officially supported on Surface or any other OEM laptop and there may be compatibility issues. Similar to applying any Windows Update, it would be prudent to run compatibility testing prior to rolling out new intel.com drivers on mission-critical systems. For most home users, any issues encountered will be minor and can be resolved by simply uninstalling the new driver and reverting back to the old one.

Install steps:

1. Download the latest official .exe DCH GPU driver from Intel.com.
   • Most customers should use the first option for HD 5000 and later GPUs unless you have a reason to choose an alternate. If the website presents an option between a .exe and a .zip version, download the .exe version. Folks with older laptops will need to search for their particular driver based on the specifications provided by their computer manufacturer. For example HD Graphics 4000 series. Although drivers built for Windows 8.1 will run on Windows 10, it is best to use the Windows 10 specific drivers when available even if they are older than the Windows 8.1 drivers.
2. Install by double-clicking the downloaded .exe and click OK or Yes to the prompts – if the program completes without issue, continue to step 3. But if the program stops and states it is not designed for your computer, you need to temporarily disable the currently installed GPU driver via Device Manager as follows:
   • Click Start –  type in “Device Manager” and click the “Device Manager” program
   • In Device Manager, double-click “Display Adapters” to reveal the Intel Graphics listing
   • Double-click the Intel HD or Intel Iris Graphics listing
   • Click to the Driver tab
   • Click “Update Driver” then on the window that pops up click “Browse my computer…” then “Let me pick…”
   • Scroll to the bottom of the list and click “Microsoft Basic Display Adapter”
   • Click “Next”
   • Your screens may flicker for a few seconds and external monitors will go blank
   • Close Device Manager
   • Double-click the .exe previously downloaded and click OK or Yes to the prompts
3. Reboot
4. Optional: Install the official Intel Graphics Command Center app from the Microsoft app store. Once installed, a link will appear on the start menu which will give you customization options.

Additional Notes:

• How to correct brightness flickering
• How to add custom resolutions for multiple monitors or faster gaming
• Where did my new Intel driver go?
  • Even though the driver downloaded from intel.com is likely newer than the driver you had previously, Windows may still consider the older driver a better match for your hardware because it has a more specific plug-and-play hardware identifier code (PNPID). From time to time, Microsoft may push “new” drivers via Windows Update that have older date stamps than your current intel.com driver, often during OS service packs / upgrades. If this happens, you can re-run the downloaded Intel .exe or follow these steps to get your preferred Intel driver back:
    • Start – Device Manager
    • Navigate to “Display Adapters” and double-click the Intel HD Graphics or Iris Graphics listing
    • Driver tab -> Update Driver -> Browse my computer… -> Let me pick…
    • Click the most recent Intel driver from the list
    • Click “Next”
    • You may need to reboot
  • While not recommended, you can prevent future automatic driver updates for all devices as follows:
    • Start – change device installation settings
    • Select No then click save changes
    • To prevent automatic driver updates for your GPU, follow this guide.
• You can uninstall previous Intel driver versions including those delivered via Windows Update. Multiple versions often reside in the local system driver store taking up disk space. Removal can be done manually via Device manager or via the DDU tool.