Microsoft Certified Drivers May Break Radeon RX 6000 GPUs

The trouble for AMD is currently not ending. Now a repair expert reports problems after a driver update. In the worst case, GPUs from the Radeon RX 6000 series can fail and should not be repairable.

This is reported by the online magazine Neowin and refers to the YouTuber KrisFixGermany. He published a corresponding video on YouTube, in which he talked about the problems after the driver update and shared his conclusions.

It could therefore be that AMD is triggering a chain reaction in the graphics cards with the Microsoft-certified WHQL driver. It is about the driver for the GPUs of the Radeon RX 6000 series and the driver in version 22.11.2.

Lots of broken Radeon RX 6800 and 6900 series GPUs

The report comes from KrisFixGermany, which repairs graphics cards and other hardware components in its shop. He has currently received a striking number of orders for defective GPUs from the Radeon RX 6800 and 6900 series. More than 60 pieces with the same error story are said to have already arrived. 48 were completely “dead” and basically could not be repaired.

KrisFix’s investigation found that the rails for the SoC, memory, and memory controller were shorted. The short could have been caused by the chips themselves breaking and damaging the metal layers of the circuit board. What exactly happened is still unclear. It could be a hardware-related error that appeared on some GPUs during production and has now manifested itself through the software update.

It is assumed that the driver intervenes in the heat control and can thus lead to overheating. But that hasn’t been confirmed yet – AMD hasn’t heard anything about the problems so far.