AMD drivers have a complicated reputation, but they don’t usually lock up your entire operating system. Unfortunately for some users, AMD’s latest Adrenalin 23.2.1 driver for Radeon RX 6000 and RX 7000 series GPUs seems to do just that.
In response to a AMD Twitter Announcement (opens in new tab) About the newly released driver update, some users jumped into the answers to complain that the updates were preventing them from booting into Windows.
My whole PC broke, now I have to set up Windows again. ThanksFebruary 15, 2023
They bricked my Windows installationFebruary 15, 2023
While it’s not uncommon for a driver update to cause system problems, it’s rare for a driver to actually damage an operating system. We haven’t yet confirmed the driver issue ourselves, but the official Twitter account for the frame capture tool CapFrameX tweeted a possible cause of the issue, noting that the driver might be making changes to the system BIOS.
[Update] The driver seems to change the BIOS settings. Check the boot options if your system does not boot after installing the driver. Don’t just reinstall the operating system.February 15, 2023
CapFrameX also links to a forum post on the German tech site ComputerBase (opens in new tab) about the issue, which other users on the site also seem to confirm. TechRadar has reached out to AMD regarding the reports and will update this post when we receive feedback from the company.
AMD’s Achilles heel strikes again?
AMD currently makes arguably the best graphics card on the market for gamers (at least for those who can’t shell out anywhere near two grand for a GPU), but things aren’t going smoothly for Team Red in its never-ending battle with arch-rival Nvidia.
In response to AMD’s tweet about the new driver, some users complained that AMD Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards haven’t received any major updates in a few months, and AMD’s infrequent driver release has even been a selling point for Nvidia (although it usually not the most convincing).
The driver issue comes at a time when AMD has gained a lot of ground over its competitor in the consumer GPU market due to the strength of its RDNA 3 graphics cards, and the issue is unlikely to discourage gamers from buying AMD graphics cards. As more users encounter these kinds of serious issues, that could change quickly.
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