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If you have an AMD GPU, stay away from the latest Windows Update

Two AMD Radeon RX 7000 graphics cards on a pink surface.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

A quick PSA: If you own one of AMD’s best graphics cards and you like to tweak the settings, now is not a good time to download the latest Windows Update. According to users on the AMD forums, the KB5030310 update really doesn’t agree with AMD’s Adrenalin Control Panel. While it’s not the end of the world, this isn’t the first Windows update in the last few months that has caused problems.

It appears that every time people restart their PCs, their Adrenalin settings are all reset back to default. This means that any changes made to things like AMD’s Anti-Lag or Hyper RX will disappear upon every boot. Fortunately, the graphics driver itself is unaffected.

The first reports of issues came in immediately following the latest Windows 11 update, with one user saying that “Adrenalin 23.9.3 resets to default tuning values every boot [and] reboot, stating there was an unexpected system failure when nothing happened.” They also added that the problem occurs even if the Adrenalin settings were already set to default. The issue is reportedly due to Microsoft Copilot, which was added in the latest Windows update.

The good news is that the GPU itself seems to work fine. The user in question reports that they have an Asus RX 7900 XTX and that everything else is stable. However, for users who like to tweak their graphics settings on the GPU side using the Adrenalin software, this can be annoying. As spotted by Windows Latest, several users have chimed in since last week to report the issue.

Person using Windows 11 laptop on their lap by the window.
Microsoft

It’s hard to say with certainty that the problem lies with Microsoft’s recent update — it’s just as likely that the fix will come from AMD in the form of a new driver. However, Microsoft’s track record for delivering flawless updates hasn’t been great lately. Just a couple of weeks ago, the latest update to Windows 11 caused blue screens of death, slowdowns, and issues in games like Starfield. Three weeks before that, Windows 11 ran into a problem with Intel’s best processors, as the update caused users to get stuck in a loop of blue screens and crashes.

At this point, Microsoft doesn’t recognize the Adrenalin problem as a known issue, so the fix may take a bit of time. If you don’t really play around with AMD’s Adrenalin software and mostly tweak in-game settings, you’re good to go and you can use the KB5030310 update. However, if you’d prefer for your settings to not get reset after every reboot, uninstall the update and wait for a fix, be it from AMD or from Microsoft.

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Monica J. White
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
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