AMD Catalyst 15.7 Driver is now available!

[SPBHM]

with such a vague comment, anything could be possible.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amdnv-phoronix-11&num=1

 

[monstercameron]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amdnv-phoronix-11&num=1

and I can counter with this http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-411-gallium&num=1

 

[SPBHM]

and I can counter with this http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-411-gallium&num=1

no Catalyst, no Forceware, no demanding linux steam games...

OK.

best case for linux gaming is not using open source drivers;

 

[monstercameron]

no Catalyst, no Forceware, no demanding linux steam games...

OK.

heh, opensource is very important to some.

 

[Makaveli]

7000 series hit the market in 2012 (7970 in January, other during the following months)

http://www.techpowerup.com/156876/amd-pulls-radeon-hd-7970-launch-to-december-22.html

 

[destrekor]

Well, rather than go back and forth, as neither of us really know anything technical, we'll have to wait and see.

Agreed. Comically enough, I was thinking of making the same point if we continued any further. :thumbsup:

Benches and demos can sell almost sell ice to an Eskimo - but the reality of the bargain can be much different, and thus we'll have to wait and see until actual well-coded games are released, judging then how much improvement is brought by the new APIs and features.

 

[96Firebird]

http://www.techpowerup.com/156876/amd-pulls-radeon-hd-7970-launch-to-december-22.html

"Hit the market" means retail availability...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5312/amd-radeon-hd-7970-now-for-sale

 

[Red Hawk]

Ok, now that's some bug.

I upgraded to the 15.7 drivers from the last 15.6 beta. I did a clean install, like I always do, by using the Catalyst Install Manager in the Windows Control Panel to "express uninstall all AMD software", then install the new driver. After installing the driver, here's what started happening.

When turning on my PC after being left off for a couple hours or so, the computer would successfully POST. Then, for a split second, it would display the Windows 8 symbol on screen that indicates it's booting into Windows. Then the PC would immediately, without fail and without warning, shut down. It was doing this consistently every time after being left turned off, for several days. Also without fail, if I turned the computer back on immediately afterwards, it would POST and successfully boot into Windows. No shutdowns have happened while using the computer or when doing warm reboots, it's only happened directly after the PC POSTs and starts booting up Windows after being turned off for some time.

I know random shutdowns are usually power supply related, but the power supply I have is only a couple months old, and hadn't given me this problem before. I uninstalled 15.7 and reinstalled the 15.6 beta, and just now I powered on my PC after being left alone for a couple hours, and the issue seems to be gone.

I'll have to test this a little more, make sure the issue doesn't reappear under 15.6 and then reinstall 15.7 to see if the issue reappears before I submit a bug report to AMD. But if this is related to the 15.7 driver, it's by far the worst driver bug I've ever encountered.

 

[Elixer]

Ok, now that's some bug.

I upgraded to the 15.7 drivers from the last 15.6 beta. I did a clean install, like I always do, by using the Catalyst Install Manager in the Windows Control Panel to "express uninstall all AMD software", then install the new driver. After installing the driver, here's what started happening.

That isn't what is normally called a clean install... A clean install is you wipe the OS, and then reinstall everything.

When turning on my PC after being left off for a couple hours or so, the computer would successfully POST. Then, for a split second, it would display the Windows 8 symbol on screen that indicates it's booting into Windows. Then the PC would immediately, without fail and without warning, shut down. It was doing this consistently every time after being left turned off, for several days. Also without fail, if I turned the computer back on immediately afterwards, it would POST and successfully boot into Windows. No shutdowns have happened while using the computer or when doing warm reboots, it's only happened directly after the PC POSTs and starts booting up Windows after being turned off for some time.

I know random shutdowns are usually power supply related, but the power supply I have is only a couple months old, and hadn't given me this problem before.

Something else is wrong with your system, and it doesn't matter if the PSU is only a couple of months old, it sounds like that it is tripping some protection circuit, and powering down the machine.

There is no way for drivers to cause that kind of thing, at worst you would see a BSOD (or a constant rebooting of the OS), but driver changes can't cause a machine to power down like that.

 

[Red Hawk]

That isn't what is normally called a clean install... A clean install is you wipe the OS, and then reinstall everything.

It's a clean install in the sense that I removed the old drivers.

Something else is wrong with your system, and it doesn't matter if the PSU is only a couple of months old, it sounds like that it is tripping some protection circuit, and powering down the machine.

There is no way for drivers to cause that kind of thing, at worst you would see a BSOD (or a constant rebooting of the OS), but driver changes can't cause a machine to power down like that.

Then how would you explain it happening with the 15.7 drivers and not happening with the 15.6 drivers?

 

[Elixer]

Then how would you explain it happening with the 15.7 drivers and not happening with the 15.6 drivers?

Coincidence?

As I was saying before, if you aren't stuck in a reboot loop, and you don't see a BSOD, and all you see is the window's logo, then, bang, system powers off, that is a classic symptom of PSU (or hardware) failure.
Your motherboard may have additional protections built in to power off on some extreme condition as well.

 

[Hitman928]

Drivers could absolutely cause an endless reboot at windows load. Red Hawk, try upgrading without uninstalling prior drivers and see if the same thing happens.

 

[Elixer]

Drivers could absolutely cause an endless reboot at windows load. Red Hawk, try upgrading without uninstalling prior drivers and see if the same thing happens.

Yes, endless reboots (because of reboot on BSOD is on), but NOT power off system in the middle of windows loading.

 

[Hitman928]

Depends. Sometimes there is a bios setting to stay off in case of sudden crash or power loss. Red Hawk, have you checked the crash report within windows after it happens?

 

[Red Hawk]

Depends. Sometimes there is a bios setting to stay off in case of sudden crash or power loss. Red Hawk, have you checked the crash report within windows after it happens?

I have not. How would I do that exactly?

 

[Elixer]

Check event Viewer, and look for red "X" error symbols, and click on those, and it will tell you some stuff.

 

[Eymar]

I just had a similar problem with Windows 10 install + 15.7 drivers (installing dual boot with windows 7 (win 7 on SSD and win 10 on HDD). Windows 10 would sometimes boot (from powered off state) successfully or boot with "Critical Process Died". It turns out the HDD was switching transfer modes states (both drives connected to SATA 6G controller), causing long multi second delays to both SSD and HDD when accessed. Booting into windows 7 had no problems at all, which I'm guessing since HDD was not the OS drive. Moved the HDD from SATA 6G controller to SATA 3G controller and fixed my problem with Windows 10 BSODs. Probably a different issue for you, but worth a check.

 

[Red Hawk]

Check event Viewer, and look for red "X" error symbols, and click on those, and it will tell you some stuff.

Thanks, I'll check that when I get the chance.

I just had a similar problem with Windows 10 install + 15.7 drivers (installing dual boot with windows 7 (win 7 on SSD and win 10 on HDD). Windows 10 would sometimes boot (from powered off state) successfully or boot with "Critical Process Died". It turns out the HDD was switching transfer modes states (both drives connected to SATA 6G controller), causing long multi second delays to both SSD and HDD when accessed. Booting into windows 7 had no problems at all, which I'm guessing since HDD was not the OS drive. Moved the HDD from SATA 6G controller to SATA 3G controller and fixed my problem with Windows 10 BSODs. Probably a different issue for you, but worth a check.

Huh. I have my SDD boot drive, my two HDDs, and my blu ray drive all connected to SATA 6G. That's worth checking, thanks.

 

[Red Hawk]

Ok, past couple days with 15.6 showed no sign of the shutdown problem. I reinstalled 15.7, and the shutdown problem instantly reappeared. Switching my HDDs to the 3G SATA controller didn't seem to make a difference. Here are the error reports in Event Viewer that seem to have accompanied the shutdowns:

The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

- System 

  - Provider 

   [ Name]  Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power 
   [ Guid]  {331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4} 
 
   EventID 41 
 
   Version 3 
 
   Level 1 
 
   Task 63 
 
   Opcode 0 
 
   Keywords 0x8000000000000002 
 
  - TimeCreated 

   [ SystemTime]  2015-07-16T14:58:18.606044500Z 
 
   EventRecordID 41643 
 
   Correlation 
 
  - Execution 

   [ ProcessID]  4 
   [ ThreadID]  8 
 
   Channel System 
 
   Computer JasonDesktop 
 
  - Security 

   [ UserID]  S-1-5-18 
 

- EventData 

  BugcheckCode 0 
  BugcheckParameter1 0x0 
  BugcheckParameter2 0x0 
  BugcheckParameter3 0x0 
  BugcheckParameter4 0x0 
  SleepInProgress 6 
  PowerButtonTimestamp 0 
  BootAppStatus 0

and

The previous system shutdown at 10:50:15 AM on ‎7/‎16/‎2015 was unexpected.

- System 

  - Provider 

   [ Name]  EventLog 
 
  - EventID 6008 

   [ Qualifiers]  32768 
 
   Level 2 
 
   Task 0 
 
   Keywords 0x80000000000000 
 
  - TimeCreated 

   [ SystemTime]  2015-07-16T14:58:22.000000000Z 
 
   EventRecordID 41633 
 
   Channel System 
 
   Computer JasonDesktop 
 
   Security 
 

- EventData 

   10:50:15 AM 
   ‎7/‎16/‎2015 
    
    
   6 
    
    
   DF070700040010000A0032000F00AC01DF070700040010000E0032000F00AC013C0000003C000000010000003C00000000000000B00400000100000000000000 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:


In Words

0000: 000707DF 00100004 0032000A 01AC000F 
0010: 000707DF 00100004 0032000E 01AC000F 
0020: 0000003C 0000003C 00000001 0000003C 
0030: 00000000 000004B0 00000001 00000000 


In Bytes

0000: DF 07 07 00 04 00 10 00   ß.......
0008: 0A 00 32 00 0F 00 AC 01   ..2...¬.
0010: DF 07 07 00 04 00 10 00   ß.......
0018: 0E 00 32 00 0F 00 AC 01   ..2...¬.
0020: 3C 00 00 00 3C 00 00 00   <...<...
0028: 01 00 00 00 3C 00 00 00   ....<...
0030: 00 00 00 00 B0 04 00 00   ....°...
0038: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

 

[Elixer]

The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
...
The previous system shutdown at 10:50:15 AM on ‎7/‎16/‎2015 was unexpected.

For the 1st one, that is a reboot (most likely a BSOD), and the 2nd one is just spam about the 1st one.

Before, you said the system shutdown while you saw the windows loading logo, the above states that it had to reboot, so these aren't related to the shutdown issues you had (still have?).

Don't suppose you want to do an actual clean install of the OS, then drivers?

 

[Red Hawk]

For the 1st one, that is a reboot (most likely a BSOD), and the 2nd one is just spam about the 1st one.

Before, you said the system shutdown while you saw the windows loading logo, the above states that it had to reboot, so these aren't related to the shutdown issues you had (still have?).

Don't suppose you want to do an actual clean install of the OS, then drivers?

I at least saw the Windows loading logo before the system shutdown. Seeing how my system boots from an SSD, it boots pretty fast, so it's possible that the system quickly completes booting to Windows, only to instantly reboot.

I'd rather not go to the hassle of doing a clean install of the OS, especially considering that I'll just have to do it all over again in less than a month when I upgrade to Windows 10.

Edit: Huh. I've turned off and booted up my PC a couple times today, and the shutdown problem hasn't happened. Maybe switching the HDDs to SATA 3g did work after all?

 

[Hitman928]

Glad it seems to be working right now. If it starts happening again, let us know. When you removed them before to roll back to 15.6 I'm assuming you booted into safe mode to do that?

 

[Red Hawk]

Glad it seems to be working right now. If it starts happening again, let us know. When you removed them before to roll back to 15.6 I'm assuming you booted into safe mode to do that?

No, I uninstall them with the Catalyst Install Manager accessed through the Windows Control Panel, and that doesn't work when in Safe Mode. Something about Windows Installer not functioning when in Safe Mode. I don't use a driver sweeper.

 

[Hitman928]

I guess my question is how you did that then if the computer was shutting down at Windows load? I was mostly just curious if you had tried safe mode when it was happening.

 

[destrekor]

No, I uninstall them with the Catalyst Install Manager accessed through the Windows Control Panel, and that doesn't work when in Safe Mode. Something about Windows Installer not functioning when in Safe Mode. I don't use a driver sweeper.

A good trick to ensure everything is as pure as possible:

Uninstall using Catalyst Install Manager (everything)
Reboot into Safe Mode
Use Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU, found here) and follow directions
Once rebooted into Windows, install latest GPU driver
Reboot as directed.

This has been working wonderfully for me.

DDU is a fantastic program, and couldn't have come to the rescue at a better time, because in the past few years the standard Driver Sweeper was replaced by Driver Fusion, and Driver Fusion has gone to the dark side of bundling adware silently, and the included adware can almost be called malware as it silently installs even more software (though thankfully it isn't like standard malware that can require more effort to remove, simple uninstalls do the trick, but that may have changed. I learned my lesson and steer clear these days).