PC Drivers & Software

[CPM]

I recently built a new desktop, transferring only my CPU cooler and storage devices. My boot drive had windows 10 installed and was running Nvidia graphics drivers for the 1660Ti that was installed in my old PC. For several days my PC was running windows 10, and at some point I used device manager to uninstall my old Nvidia graphics drivers. My PC and graphics drivers worked just fine throughout this period.

Upon upgrading to Windows 11, all my graphics card related programs immediately broke. Browsers, file explorer, discord and other programs worked fine. However, any programs that used my RX 7900 XTX, including every game in my steam library, would not function. All of these programs would open and immediately show a black/white screen and then stop responding. After this, the icons on task manager would disappear and if the performance tab was clicked, or any 'End task' was attempted, task manager would also stop responding. GPU-Z would also stop responding if switched from Intel integrated graphics to the RX 7900 XTX. 

I figured maybe some remnants of my Nvidia drivers or windows 10 AMD drivers were causing the issue, so I wiped all my graphics drivers with DDU in safe mode and reinstalled windows 11 AMD drivers. This did not fix the issue. Finally, i tried reinstalling windows 11 and the graphics drivers again, but before I reininstalled the graphics drivers I opened some steam games and they successfully opened and ran on my intel integrated graphics. As soon as I downloaded the AMD graphics drivers, the problem resurfaced. This is why i am highly confident it is an issue with the 7900 XTX graphics drivers I am encountering. 

I have no idea how I am supposed to fix this issue short of reverting to Windows 10, and since support for Windows 10 will end by 2025 I do not think this is a viable long-term solution. 

Below are my desktop specs:

GPU: Gigabyte Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24G Graphics Card (reference card version)

CPU: Intel Core i5 13600K 14 Core LGA 1700 CPU Processor

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790 Gaming X AX LGA 1700 ATX Motherboard

RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance CL40 5200MHz DDR5 RAM

PSU: Corsair 750W RM750x 2021 80+ Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Operating System & Version: Windows 11 Home 10.0.22621 Build 22621

GPU Drivers: Adrenalin 23.7.1 (WHQL Recommended)

[Qoojo]

Here is what I would:

1. chkdsk C: and repair any issue
2. sfc /scan + dism commands (google them) to repair install
3. disconnect from internet
4. Remove all nvidia and amd drivers using DDU.
5. install gpu drivers
6. reconnect internet

The disconnect from internet will prevent windows from installing some random version. Make sure you have device installation turned off in windows.

#1 and #2 are about verifying windows install and state of c: drive

[CPM]

Thank you for the help. I had not tried steps 1 and 2. Step 2 did find one corrupt file and repaired it. I had already disconnected from the internet last time I used DDU (and run it in safe mode) but I repeated steps 3-6 as well for good measure.

These steps did not resolve the problem, but I was able to isolate it further.

It seems like there is an interaction with the graphics drivers and specific programs that cause the issue. The 3 programs I identified were Brave Browser, Divinity Original Sin: 2, and Person 4 Golden. When opened, these programs break the graphics driver entirely (task manager performance tab, GPU-Z, any future programs using the graphics card, etc.). If i restart my computer after the graphics drivers break I will blue screen shortly after with the CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT stop code. If i instead shut down and reboot I will avoid this blue screen and everything will be fixed again until I open one of the three programs again. All three programs were already on my SSD before I upgraded to Windows 11, so I will try deleting and reinstalling them and see if that fixes them. 

Notably I was able to open Divinity Original Sin: 2 on Windows 11 through Intel Integrated Graphics after I had DDU'ed my AMD drivers. I think this is definitely something that needs to be fixed on the AMD graphics driver side as these programs should, at worst, have crashed by themselves instead of bricking the graphics drivers. 

[CPM]

Update: upon wiping and redownloading, Divinity Original Sin 2 still breaks my graphics drivers until I power cycle the desktop. Not really sure how I can go about investigating further.