Hop off your outrage pony, Web. Earlier this month a YouTuber named KrisFix, who runs a German PC restore store, revealed a video titled “Are AMD cards dying after a driver update?” KrisFix mentioned that his store not too long ago obtained 60 Radeon RX 6800 and 6900 in for restore, and 48 suffered from visibly cracked GPUs.
KrisFix ostensibly requested for the neighborhood’s assist in figuring out the core problem, however between that title and the timing of the video—it revealed mere days after AMD acknowledged manufacturing points with reference Radeon RX 7900 XTX elements—the video set the fanatic neighborhood ablaze. Boards have been stuffed with fear after a number of publications ran articles fretting in regards to the injury and whether or not their very own playing cards may very well be ruined by “bad” Radeon drivers.
On our Full Nerd podcast, I cautioned involved viewers to attend for an official response from AMD. This example was bizarre. Why was solely this single German restore store seeing this problem, and why all of sudden? Drivers have been doable, however a most unlikely offender, particularly since others weren’t seeing related points across the globe. The basis trigger was extra possible one thing remoted to that store, or not less than that area.
Seems that was appropriate. In the present day, KrisFix posted a follow-up video, and he now suspects the injury was brought on by poor dealing with from cryptominers, not something AMD did.
Briefly, after additional surveying his clients, it seems that the majority of those playing cards have been purchased used in the course of the finish of November or starting of December, from the identical provider. KrisFix now theorizes that the provider was a cryptominer who possible saved the GPUs someplace moist after shutting down their operations. These humid situations possible triggered the injury, KrisFix says.
Talking from afar, that makes a lot extra sense than the unique driver worries that shook the tech neighborhood. Once more: This was bizarre.
So sure, you possibly can (and at all times might) improve your Radeon GPU to its newest driver with out concern of it blowing up. In a touch upon immediately’s video, KrisFix left the next message:
“Because there was a lot of speculation after the first video, I decided to change the title so it wouldn’t cause wrong thoughts. Journalism is a good thing, but maybe some topics become more appetizing when you twist things a bit. This channel is not meant to create videos with misleading content. The first video garnered a lot of interest and panic after which I was obliged to invest time and resources to give clarity on the topic. If in the first video I had been sure where the problem was I would not have asked you for information.”
All that mentioned, whereas KrisFix is taking goal at media protection of his report right here (we didn’t cowl it initially), it’s price mentioning as soon as once more that he initially titled his video “Are AMD cards dying after a driver update?” mere days after the overheating Radeon RX 7900 XTX controversy flared. “Maybe some topics become more appetizing when you twist things a bit,” certainly.
The unique video is now titled “Why did several dozen AMD 6000 series cards fail with the same symptoms?” KrisFix says, “I know there will be many more questions, but I think the topic is closed.”
Replace your drivers, people. And for those who’re going to get riled up over unsubstantiated rumors, not less than do it in type.
