Hello Kevin!
Thx for replying! I already updated my Intel® MEI to the latest available for my ME 8 to Intel® MEI v8.1.40.1416 with driver v9.0.0.1287 but its dated 12/17/2012... I also have the latest Chipset INF v9.4.0.1026... In Aida64 I can see my hardware supports DirectX 11.1 and when running on Intel® HD 4000 driver v3071 for Win7/8, the HD 4000 Control Panel System Information lists Dx11.1 as installed and Dx11.1 hardware supported... But as soon as I jump to 10.x drivers v3316, v3345 and v3412 I have Dx11.2 as installed but Dx11.0 as supported... Asus hasn't published a BIOS update since January 2013 for my model... And the Intel® HD 4000 driver for Win8.1 they published is that troublesome v3308 that Win8.1 also installs automatically from Windows Update... And they cause stability issues for my laptop sadly... I completely agree with your assessment that my laptop hardware basically is incompatible with Win8.1 Pro... Well at least by way of a clean installation... I want to think that maybe if I would have cloned the OEM Win8 onto my SSD and THEN upgraded to Win8.1 Single Language, that the drivers would have been carried over...
Do you have an idea as to the possible cause that the HD 4000 drivers don't install as WDDM??? I mean DxDiag says they are WDDM 1.3 and WHQL... But WinSAT doesn't recognize that as being true... Also why would the Basic Display Driver be running at the same time as HD 4000 drivers??? And WinSAT log states that I'm running on the basic drivers for some reason... Could it be that since Win8.1 is installed in UEFI mode and I have Fast Boot enabled in the BIOS and CSM disabled that possibly like you said I need a BIOS update??? The UEFI/BIOS does show a GOP version when Fast Boot is enabled and if I Enable CSM it shows a VBIOS instead.... Could I just Flash the GOP Rom to a newer version???