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pizmak70
Journeyman III

HD7970 dead after updating drivers

Is this even possible that new version of drivers killed my GPU?


My PC:

  • Desktop
  • Windows 10
  • MSI Z87- G43
  • Intel Core i5-4670K
  • 8GB RAM DDR3
  • Radeon Sapphire HD7970
  • Crosair CX 500 W ATX

When I've updated driver to Radeon Adrenalin 18.13 (I remember it was 18.13 but I had to uninstall driver due to check what is wrong) my PC was starting to behave strange immediately after. I was typing something on Google Docs and suddenly my screen turned into black and white stripes. It looked like a crash and I was not sure what actually happened. After rebooting my PC everything was fine... for a while, cause this error occured second time . I've reinstalled driver and I thought it will do the problem. But some time after I've launched Rainbow Six: Siege to check if there is still any problem. Game was running really smoothly until my monitor went black and my sound in headphones crashed. After that I could not reboot my PC. At the booting part there were red horizontal stripes, shaped in columns at the two parts of the screen . But when Windows loading screen changed, there were more columns of red stripes and then black screen. I was trying to reboot PC few times but it was all the same. I've tried to launch Windows in safe mode and it helped, the system launched. In safe mode I've uninstalled those drivers and after that I rebooted my PC. The system launched but with two columns of red stripes. Now when I want to install drivers, PC crashes. When I unplugged GPU and plugged my monitor to motherboard, everything works fine. Besides my GPU, it is not working anymore.

Could it be new drivers that killed my graphic card? I didn't do anything unusual. Everything was running correctly untill I've updated the drivers. I've even checked before I've started to play if my settings in RS:S was small enough to not harm anything (in game settings there is a meter of GPU usage, there wasnt even half of it).
I cannot trust AMD drivers? I cannot trust Radeon GPU anymore? Very sad to me very very sad.

Please help, I am waiting for Your feedback .

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6 Replies
bobsaid
Journeyman III

Good news and bad news. I have this same problem.

I eventually after basically tearing my system down and re-wiring it completely found that in the Radeon Setting app, Gaming > Global Graphics, Global Overdrive . GPU clock that the clock was being boosted from 925MHz in my cast to 1325MHz. This is a problem when even the OverDrive limits it to 1125 MHz, bumping that back down to 925MHz resolves the issues for a short time. At least until the app decides to revert back to the 1325MHz speed which then causes issues until I can be patient enough on start up, and hope it doesn't crash, to revert the overclocking and get my system stable again.

This problem is beyond annoying and I'm actually here before I open a ticket as this is an insane and painful error to deal with and I'm sure many people have probably given up on the graphics card at this point and upgraded due to the frustration.

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You may be on to something nobody else has noticed. Been seeing LOTS of these complaints. You need send this information for sure to AMD.

Online Service Request | AMD

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I was already in the process of putting one in. I'll update if I hear back from them.

I have HD7950 from sapphire. And I encountered this problem for few times now. It started after I updated driver to 18.12.2 which, partially failed. I proceeded to do clean driver install. Everything went fine, uninstall and install without errors. Yet what i find interesting it happens randomly, it's not just one game. Like first it happened on Rainbow Six: Siege (but then after restart everything was fine for rest of the day), then it happened on Warframe (day before 0 problems). So I believe problem is indeed in driver, perhaps just a little bug that gets triggered from time to time. There is optional update to 18.12.3 but I am scared to update onto it because it could be less stable. But I am relieved that it's bigger problem and not just my card dying on me. Hopefully AMD will fix it in no time, if not it will be sad because I planned on upgrading my setup bit later this year because 7950 still went strong before update. BTW. Card is still alive, but it hurts me when I see this crash as it doesn't look good for hardware.

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On your setup if you are booting into Windows and not going to a black screen or hang and that is only randomly happening during some game play? I suggest you find the Power Limit setting in Radeon Settings and slide that to it's maximum. In many of the old drivers this wasn't necessary on the old series of cards but thes newer cards I have theo do the with my HD7950 Saphire card. We may have the same model. I however did return to an older driver for stability sake. While I can get my newer RX 580 card working fine. My older R9 380x, HD7870 and HD7950 all have issues with recent drivers and I did just revert to older stable drivers, especially since they aren't my primary gaming machines. The one computer mostly just runs Steam and streams current AAA titles from my better machine to TV and still directly plays older games great. I highly advise you let AMD know about your issues. They need to keep hearing that customer are not happy with their current level of support they receive. 

Online Service Request | AMD

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tech50one
Journeyman III

1.  amd software removal tool

2 . Turn off anti virus software.

3 . Down load adrenaline 18.12.1.

4 . Never update. 

5 . Grab some champagne .

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