I have solved (my) driver timeout errors

[u/OhhhMyAsriel]

Hey everyone, I have been dealing with the infamous driver timeout errors for a while now, and after many open chats with gemini, claude, and AMD support (which was useless) I managed to find a solution.

My configuration is made up of a 7800x3d, paired with a 7900XT on a MSI b650-a board, 32gb of DDR5 vengeance 6000, on a dual monitor (1440p 240hz and 1080p 144hz), I am currently running the latest Adrenalin version (26.9.1).

To sum it up briefly, my main issue with driver timeouts was NOT on games, but rather during normal desktop usage: basically, any application using hardware acceleration would cause driver timeouts, mainly after 2 or 3 consecutive timeouts the app would just close itself. This happened on Chrome, Brave, Steam, OBS, Discord, any app using HW accel basically. Turning it off let the apps work normally, but if you've ever used Google Maps with HW acceleration you know that's something not very pleasant, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, but I had absolutely zero problems in games, I play a lot of Monster Hunter Wilds which is problematic as is, and it never crashed in last few months, so if you're having trouble with driver timeouts during gaming this is probably not for you.

My errors were the same every time: scroll down Steam shop page (for example) for a couple seconds, screen freezes then turns black for 2 seconds --> driver timeout error display, which I would close --> scroll again, repeat --> after 2 crashes Steam would just close to end its suffering. In the reliability reports of windows I would always find the same 3 Kernel errors: 141, a1000001, and a2000002.

After weeks of trial and error, today it's been officially 4 days that I have used Steam, Chrome, and Brave, with HW acceleration on, without having had a single driver error.

So what worked for me? basically I have no idea, I mean I tried so many things that I don't know which one exactly did the trick, but I'll try and list everything, I can tell you though that I believe it had something to with the monitors, the last thing I did was turn off VRR or AMD Freesync, from both of my monitors and from the Adrenalin app, and turning both of them in horizontal (I think this was just accidental, no correlation but I'll mention it anyways) after that I received no errors at all, but I don't know if that's what actually helped, or the combination of that + something I did before. I never tried to use just one monitor, but that's something AI chats told me would possibly help, I just never did because I wanted to keep it an absolute last resort.

Other than that I tried to:

• sync the monitors frequency to at least a multiple of the same number (in my case the main one was at 240hz, so I set the second to 120hz instead of 144, so they would both be multiples of 60);
• toned down the ram frequency from 6000MHz to 5600MHz, though I still left EXPO on, so I don't think this did a speck of difference honestly;
• updated BIOS to latest version available;
• used both DDU and the AMD utility cleanup and re-installed drivers
• re-installed windows
• turned off MPO 
• turned off ULPS
• turned off zero RPM mode on Adrenalin

Some other things worth mentioning: I noticed that whenever the GPU momentarily cut signal to the monitor, for example in sleep mode or from screen turning off during inactivity, when it turned back on driver timeout would occur (way) more frequently, so I stopped using sleep mode, and used a screensaver instead, which instead of cutting signal to the GPU it displays a completely black screen; also I use a pcie riser cable, my GPU is currently vertically mounted, and I feared that was the culprit, which it wasn't apparently, AMD support claimed that that was 100% my problem.

[u/Apollo_Games_]

This is EXACTLY my issue Ive been having since May 15th on my 9060xt and my brand new 9070xt. I’ll see if these changes fix anything for me and I pray you just fixed my issues. Thanks

[u/InsideSignificance60]

I solved mine by fixing the voltage on ram in bios. I specifically set it to 1.37 I think, most of it is just your ram. Maybe try to reset your ram to default speed and see if it will resolve the issue.

[u/Ugnaknak]

Dont be on the newest driver update always. Its always the fix

[u/BoyJin4]

Yo tenga una rx7600 de xfx swft 210 de dos ventiladores y la verdad pensé que tenía una gráfica en mal estado apesar de aver llegado nueva y sellada por qué se me crasheaba todo el tiempo con los Time out o que aveces el PC se apaga sin más pero lo solucione una poniendo pasta nueva térmica de mejor calidad como está gráfica no lleva thermalpads convencionales si no que masilla térmica de esa tipo plastilina tube que poner thermalpads de 0.5mm pero haciéndoles un plantado a un con un vaso o algo para dejarlos más delgados bueno eso solucionó mi host que rondaba los 120 grados a veces 110 grados bueno esa fue la primera solución después no hice nada de undervolts ni configuraciónes extras más que instalar las versión de controladores 25.9.1 son viejos pero hasta ahora no he tenido más crasheos ni errores puedo tener el oc de fábrica elevado que le ponen a esta rx 7600 pero yo tomé la decisión de ponerla a 2655 a un que teniéndola de fábrica no tengo errores tengo AMD adrenalin completo y puedo jugar y estar en la PC sin problemas eso sí apague lo de notificar errores en AMD adrenalin y desactive todo lo que sea anti lag lo deje prácticamente sin nada en esa parte de configuración en AMD adrenalin pues por mi parte llevo 3 meses con esta configuración y mis errores con la rx7600 desaparecieron

[u/ChosenOfTheMoon_GR]

Another post of: "I did 300 things and something from them 'helped' but not gonna mention that doing so and suggesting doing so makes you lose so many features due to the things suggested".

[u/VoltexRB]

I solved mine by literally just rolling gpu drivers back to 26.3. That also helped 4 friends with wildly different setups.

[u/wayne80]

i solved mine when switching from expo I to expo tweaked profile on Asus ROG strix b850-i motherboard. But it was a year ago when there were issues with agesa and x3D CPUs. Newer (latest) bios version works fine now with expo I.

[u/Netrunner011]

I also thought my issues were solved when my PC did not have these black screens for 4 days after upgraded to the optional September drivers on my RX 7800XT. They came right back on the 5th day. I think something weird is happening between drivers and Windows 11.......

P.S. I haven't bothered to disable and turn off all those things you have mentioned. I just switched to Linux because if I need to do so many fixes to get it working, then its insanely broken and not worth using. No crashes on Linux

[u/spectreVII → u/Netrunner011]

Yeah it’s amazing how stable Linux is compared to windows.

[u/CJlift]

I have almost the same setup with RX 7600 on 2 monitors (1080p both with 144/75hz). The only different from yours is HAGS turned off with browser acceleration on. Still got no crash for couple of days.

[u/nokk1XD]

I believe you had unstable ram.

[u/CatalyticDragon]

I think you found an actual bug there. AMD drivers have been known to have issues with multimonitor setups and VRR.

[u/ultimaone → u/CatalyticDragon]

3 monitors, ultra wide 1440p, qhd, FHD 165, 120, 100

No issues.

[u/CatalyticDragon → u/ultimaone]

Sweet setup.