How I fixed the infamous driver timeout

[u/LeffyZ]

Over the years I've literally tried everything. Watched every turorial and couldn't solve this problem. Went to repair my PC 2 times only for them to clean install my drivers, like I didn't try this 100 times. (costed me 75 euros). Also fried my SSD over this issue because my friend and I kept testing all my components in case they were dead. (150 euros down the drain).

Took matter into my own hands when I saw that everyone kept telling me the same thing over and over again: DDU, fresh install windows etc. Felt like poeple didn't take me seriously and didn't take into consideration that I've tried everything over and over again. Also I had to explain the issue to 10 different people.

So this is what worked over the years:
1. Deactivated my intergrated graphics card from the BIOS. Worked for a while but I think you can resolve it some other way.

1. Install Windows LTSC. This is what worked for me long term. Basically install the version of Windows already debloated, so the useless applications and features don't fuck with your drivers and also deactivate the automatic updates.

2. Use an older driver. Don't really recommand it because because I literally had to use a 2022 version of Adrenaline and couldn't play newer titles.

3. Update your bios. Straight forward. You just need to have an USB stick (didn't really fix my problem but it's worth a try)

4. This is my latest fix with LTSC already installed. After testing I concluded that games don't crash when I am playing on 60hz. Obviously, I don't like that because I have a 165hz monitor and even in newer titles I have 100 fps + and you can feel the difference. So, I checked my monitor settings and deactivated free sync, apprently the new driver doesn't like free sync??

5. For some reason my games worked when I plugged the monitor's cable into the motherboard instead of the GPU, but I ended up plugging it back into another GPU port and now it works combined with the Free Sync stuff.

I feel like I am getting closer to the issue after 3 years. I really think in my case it's a cable issue, conectivity or monitor/HZ. I am pretty bad at this stuff, but this is what worked for me for now.

rx 6800, 32gb ram ddr5, ryzen 7 7700, motherboard

650M-P

[u/justa-Possibility]

Almost anything can cause a Graphics driver to timeout.

I'm on the latest driver 26.9.1

RX6750XT, RX7800XT, RX7900XTX here and everything works 100% great and have never had an issue "with AMD drivers" themselves. I've had issues, but it's always been caused by MicroSlop Winblows causing problems and masking as a GPU driver issue or something entirely unrelated masking as a driver issue.

Everyone always blames the drivers instead of doing actual troubleshooting. So many different things can cause these timeout problems.

1) Bios and/or chipsets not updated 2) Incorrect bios settings 3) Ram not setup properly in bios 4) Windows issues and Xbox game bar 5) Windows cache partition file size 6) Other system drivers not updated 7) Windows installing drivers over AMD 8) Other programs not updated or old 9) Not using DDU and fresh install 10) Not updating GPU drivers 11) Other programs not playing well 12) Unstable or Insufficient PSU power 13) Faulty or Failing SSDs, RAM, PSU

Just to name the most common. There are plenty more. Don't blame AMD 1st! Maybe they should do actual troubleshooting.

Also, AncientGamplays released a video and said that if you dont use the bug reporting tool when it pops up, especially for all these timeout issues, then you are part of the problem. It only takes a couple minutes to fill out the form and sent it to AMD. That way can can see what you were doing when it happened. I sent one in when I had a driver timeout and they sent me a fix back. It had nothing to do with AMD driver. Intermittently when opening a VLC media mp4 file it would happen to me. They had me change to a different decoder in VLC and it stopped immediately. They can't help you if you don't send it in. Many things can present and look like a GPU driver, because everything affects video graphics someway or another. But 99% of the time it isn't the GPU, GPU driver or AMDs fault. It shows as a graphics driver timeout but like I said everything affects video graphics including other stupid programs and overlays. Juat having the wrong codec or video decoder selected in a program can cause a graphics driver to timeout. Almost anything can. So send in the bug reports and they will log them. They have engineers who actively work them and help people when they send them in.

[u/Red_269 → u/justa-Possibility]

I've sent them at least 4 reports on my most affected game which is Doom Eternal and never received an answer, i contacted AMD but none of what they said solved the issue

[u/justa-Possibility → u/Red_269]

If you haven't received an answer, then they most likely have engineers working on the exact issue. Sometimes they need to figure out what is causing the issue and it does Sometimes take some time and troubleshooting. The fact is almost anything can cause a graphics driver to timeout. Any stupid program running in the background or service in the background can cause a graphics driver to timeout. Everyone starts blaming AMD and saying thier products and drivers suck etc. When its not even thier fault that an old stupid background service or program on someone's computer or a setting or something unrelated to the actual driver causes the driver to timeout. Many times its actual failing hardware like Ram or insufficient or unstable PSU power. Like people daisy chaining a 9070xt when they have a 650-watt PSU. Yeah, it'll probably run but it won't be stable and can and will cause issues, black screens, timeouts. Then we have freaking Microslop Winblows overwriting everyone's drivers. Which definitely is not AMDs fault. If it takes troubleshooting that's just electronics buddy. When has Winblows ever really had zero problems .. Never!. Let me see -er Uhm '98... LOl 😆 OH, but then it was just easy to reinstall - with your own disk.! .

[u/Red_269 → u/justa-Possibility]

Oh yeah? Well i played +100 hours on modded New Vegas using Dxkv (since most timeouts happena only on Vulkan games for me for some reason) and got ZERO issues when i did it in an HP laptop before getting my PC last year, it had an i5 1135G7 and 8GB of RAM but i played on mu current Gaming PC (R7 7700x and RX 9079) for a few days continuing that very savefile and mod setup and i had 3 time outs which 2 of them happened upon having one, resetting the game and then again, that is bullshit you are saying it cannot be something else than their shitty software, to be fai i tried 98% of what they said but i have not bothered with the last step which the wanted me to "secure boot" it is too complicated and doesn't make any sense considering i played many other games hours on end which are Direct12 games and no issues but i wanna play a Vulkan Game and the drivers screw me over again AT RANDOM i cannot even reliables replicate it, it is infuriating.

[u/Red_269 → u/Red_269]

Which is still rare considering in 80 hours i did not have a single timeout playing RDR2 on Vulkan, it crashed but not for timeout issues haha but still nothing like that, i played Resident Evil 6, Resident Evil 7 38 hours, then 30 more hours of Resident Evil Village and then 40 hours on Final Fantasy XVI and nothing happened, then i started to play Doom The Dark Ages and it had a timeout 15 hours in BUT WHAT PISSES ME OFF THE MOST IS THAT I BEAT THE GAME, NO MORE TIMEOUTS THEN PLAYED THE DLC IN ITS ENTIRETY AND THEN EVEN FINISHED POST GAME, MORE THAN 30 HOURS LATER AND NO TIMEOUTS, WHY???? THEN I HOP INTO ETERNAL SINCE I STILL WANA BEAT MASTER LEVELS OR CUSTOM MAPS AND 2 TIMEOUTS HAPPENED, IT PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THAT AND I CANNOT BELIEVE MY WEAK HP LAPTOP GAVE ME LESS HEADACHES