Users of second generation (Sandy Bridge) onboard Intel HD Graphics complain about artifacts, stuttering video playback and partly black screens in Windows 8.1. An Intel employee posted the company won't provide a solution. Previously, Microsoft used graphic drivers called Windows Display Drivers Model (WDDM) 1.2. With the release of Windows 8.1 this was changed to WDDM 1.3.
Intel did release new Windows 8.1 drivers for 3rd (Ivy Bridge) and 4th (Haswell) generation Intel Core CPUs with integrated graphics but skipped previous generations. This affects users with Sandy Bridge Core i3/5/7 CPUs that use their onboard Intel HD Graphics 2000 and 3000. An Intel employee stated on the Intel forums that the company is not planning to release WDDM 1.3 drives for these chips.
While it's common practice in the computer industry to end support for older hardware, most users have systems that are no more than two years old which are no pretty much useless when the computer only has onboard graphics.
