Latest AMD Radeon graphics driver is reportedly bricking Home windows

Facepalm: It is unhealthy sufficient that customers with older AMD graphics playing cards needed to wait two months for a brand new driver. Now, experiences point out the motive force is making Home windows 10 and 11 unbootable. Group Crimson hasn’t formally responded but, however these putting in the motive force ought to set a brand new system restore level first to be protected.

Customers across the net report that AMD’s Radeon Adrenalin 23.2.1 graphics driver prevents Home windows programs from booting, forcing some to reinstall Home windows. Theories abound in regards to the trigger, however a definitive answer hasn’t emerged.

Since releasing the motive force on Valentine’s Day, complaints emerged throughout Reddit, Twitter, the ComputerBase boards, and certain elsewhere. Affected customers say that after putting in the Adrenalin driver, they obtain an Inaccessible Boot Drive error. Some report that shifting to an earlier Home windows System Restore level saved them from having to reinstall the working system utterly.

The official Twitter account for the CapFrameX software program advises these affected to verify their boot choices within the BIOS, suspecting that the motive force modified the BIOS settings. Some theorize {that a} latest Home windows replace did not totally agree with the brand new driver.

[Update] The driving force appears to vary BIOS settings. Verify the boot choices when your system does not boot after putting in the motive force. Don’t simply reinstall the OS.

— CapFrameX (@CapFrameX) February 15, 2023

The scenario is extremely discouraging as a result of, for many AMD GPU house owners, that is the primary new driver from the corporate since early December. Group Crimson centered its driver updates solely on its new Radeon RX 7000 playing cards all through December and January.

Till this week, house owners of the RX 6000 sequence and earlier GPUs missed out on optimizations for main video games just like the Useless House remake, Forspoken, and Hogwarts Legacy. The February driver additionally provides optimizations for Spider-Man, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Hitman 3, F1 2022, and different video games whereas fixing a severe and longstanding drawback with SpaceEngine. The important subject with 23.2.1 could depart non-RX 7000 AMD customers ready even longer for these enhancements.

House owners of Radeon 6800U gadgets just like the Ayaneo 2 and Ayaneo Geek must also watch out with the 23.2.1 driver as a result of a glitch causes it to scale back the APU’s accessible VRAM to 512MB. Ayaneo advises customers to flash a brand new BIOS through USB after checking the reminiscence within the activity supervisor. Ayaneo’s advisory strengthens the idea that one thing in AMD’s newest driver is affecting the BIOS, but it surely’s not clear how the motive force impacts different 6800U machines just like the GPD Win Max 2.

When uninstalling problematic drivers, third-party software program like Show Driver Uninstaller can guarantee a clear uninstallation. Customers ought to set a system restore level earlier than utilizing it, nonetheless.