Both AMD and Nvidia’s latest drivers can do very bad things to your gaming PC
Nobody looks good in the latest round of graphics card updates because both AMD and Nvidia have released drivers that can do bad things to your PC. First, Nvidia has a relatively simple CPU overload problem (opens in new tab) This occurs after exiting a game and the basic workaround is to simply revert to the previous driver. Second, in rare cases, AMD’s driver can completely corrupt your Windows installation.
eep That’s a pretty bigger deal, but actually AMD isn’t really to blame, although it was live in both this latest Adrenaline driver and the previous one. Give Windows the preference for updating the operating system at all costs.
Both February’s Adrenalin 23.2.1 driver and the current 23.2.2 release can completely brick your machine, as has happened to a number of Radeon owners as well as PC World’s Brad Chacos (opens in new tab). They have documented their pain and the “exotic” steps they took to get their test bench working again after the driver update destroyed it.
The problem seems to be that on rare occasions Windows decides it just doesn’t matter what you do must update something Installing your new AMD drivers will corrupt the system. Chacos found that their installation ran fine up to the point where it would reboot the computer, at which point it went through a continuous boot->BSOD cycle.
How do I fix the latest GPU driver issues?
- Nvidia Workaround: Either revert to a previous driver or use the task manager to end the Nvidia container entry task.
- AMD workaround: Uncheck the Factory Reset box when installing the new drivers or, if your system is corrupted, spam the power button at boot to force an automatic recovery event.
The workaround, the result of a tedious back-and-forth with AMD engineers, is to flip the power button on your PC the split second between the BIOS keystroke options screen and the appearance of the spinning Windows logo. That should encourage an automatic recovery event, which in turn will allow you to choose from some advanced options to sort out your system.
Easier said than done, as Chacos had to hit the power button on fifteen different shoes before they actually managed to get him going again.
Startup Repair reportedly made things a lot worse, but a system restore to a previous restore point got things working again. A long way due to a confusion between AMD drivers and Windows’ established update process, but one that at least has a solution.
To avoid the situation that occurs when you update your drivers, AMD recommends unchecking the Factory Reset checkbox in Adrenaline installation options. This is only really necessary if you’re updating from an Nvidia card (although sometimes even then doesn’t help), so it’s worth not enabling for now.
AMD provided this workaround statement to PC World:
“We have reproduced an issue that can occur in an extremely small number of cases when a PC update occurs during the installation of AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition and we are actively investigating. We recommend users to ensure that all system updates are applied or stopped before installing the driver and that the “Factory Reset” option is disabled during the AMD driver installation. We strive to resolve issues as quickly as possible and strongly encourage users to report issues with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition through the Bug Report Tool.”
This problem with the Nvidia drivers is less catastrophic, but still a nuisance when your CPU’s resources are unnecessarily hogged by the Nvidia container software after you’ve finished a game.
The error is reported to eat up 10-15% of your CPU resources, sometimes even more. That might not sound like much, but it’s enough to probably get some fans spinning more than they should and making a noise in your rig. If you’ve noticed increased fan noise lately, this could be the culprit. Check the task manager after exiting a game and see if there is an entry for Nvidia Container consuming processor silicon.
The solution is to either just kill this process from the task manager, or simply revert to a previous driver without the funky new AI video upscaling feature (opens in new tab) baked in or with the latest game optimizations.
Nvidia has added the issue to their list of known issues with the driver, so an upcoming hotfix may be available if they can pinpoint the exact issue.