User reports claim December Windows 11 security update fixes AMD GPU hanging and driver crashing

(Image credit: AMD)

Windows 11 has been causing a ruckus for graphics card owners over the past several weeks — particularly for Nvidia GPU owners, to the point where Nvidia was forced to release a hotfix GPU driver to fix gaming performance problems caused by the October update. Now that the December security update for Windows 11 is out, we have new evidence reported by OC3D that AMD GPUs were possibly also having issues caused by Windows 11 cumulative updates. A number of user reports claim that the December security update for Windows 11 has fixed several AMD-related GPU crashes and other bugs.

Several AMD GPU owners claim the December KB5070311 update for Windows 11 fixed a few major issues affecting AMD GPU owners over the past year. This includes GPU driver crashing issues in games such as Battlefield 6, Arc Raiders, and BO7, as well as general AMD GPU hanging in Windows. There is no official documentation from Microsoft or AMD regarding these fixes, but there are enough user reports suggesting their issues were fixed following the installation of the December update that it seems legitimate.

The only piece of evidence that relates to what these AMD GPU owners are reporting is a patch note from KB5070311 stating that Windows 11 will no longer display an "unsupported graphics card detected" message when a supported GPU is being used. Interestingly, AMD's patch notes for the latest version of Adrenalin (25.12.1) list several application and driver crashing issues on a number of games and GPUs, but only a couple of these crashing instances were fixed, and AMD did not claim Windows was the source of these issues.

This could be a case in which neither Microsoft nor AMD had any idea Windows was causing these AMD-related GPU problems, and, somehow, some of the changes in the latest security update accidentally fixed said problems. Regardless, this is a win-win situation for AMD GPU owners who have been struggling with these problems for months. Mass reports of GPU hanging and driver instability have been happening since the RX 9070 XT launch in March 2025, and seem to affect RX 7000 series GPUs somewhat as well (though RX 9000 series GPUs have been suffering the most).

This situation is very similar to the problems Nvidia was having with Microsoft's updates. A month ago, Nvidia released a hotfix driver that regained around 50% performance in affected games on Nvidia GPUs — the performance issues were caused by a security-related change in one of the Windows 11 updates in October.

If you have a modern AMD graphics card, it's worth installing the December Windows 11 security update to see if any graphics issues you are having go away. Of course, the update is non-optional, so your system will likely get it automatically over the next week if it hasn't already. Just remember that there is no guarantee any issues you have will be fixed, and Microsoft and AMD have not officially confirmed any AMD-specific GPU fixes yet relating to Windows cumulative/security updates specifically.

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

3 Comments Comment from the forums

txfeinbergs

Not just AMD in this case. My machine has been crashing the graphics driver on wake from sleep due to a Microsoft Security update for the last 4 months. (Nvidia 5090).
Reply
S58_is_the_goat

Microsoft: we take gaming seriously...

"crickets"
Reply
rluker5

I just picked up a 9070xt this week and it seems very crash prone compared to Nvidia and Intel. Not if I have a good undervolt and/or oc, or are running stock AND haven't done anything in software that will (without warning and with little reason behind it) make it unstable, then my 9070xt is rock solid and fast and just needs more per game tuning than the other brands. I also took the opportunity of getting a new GPU to reinstall Windows. It is extra work, but I like seeing the extra drive space and cleaning up old programs and stuff every few years. Also on 13900kf, if that matters.

The apparent, in the games I've tried so far, need to mess around with the software environment to get the best settings, added with the sensitivity to changing certain settings seems like the more likely culprit here for hanging and crashing than Windows IMO.

Some examples are: I can't get the AMD software to automatically undervolt at bootup so I rely in MSI AB to do that and the AMD software sometimes doesn't like that. I just installed my 2nd driver for Redstone (with MSI settings set to stock) and my OCCT and game tested ram settings were suddenly unstable to the point of a blackscreen as soon as the drivers installed and I reapplied them. This happened when I rebooted as well. So I changed the settings. Also when I first was setting up my undervolt it was fine in 3dMark stuff and in game benches, but as soon as I changed settings the game would instacrash after being fine for the bench, just needed more volts I guess. By comparison neither Nvidia nor Intel have this issue. A stable oc is stable across all games and driver updates.

Also with MSI AB I checked the "Disable ULPS" and video playback was dropping half of the frames randomly no matter what else I changed, so I unchecked that and everything was good again.

I like to play vsync, but seem to have to mess with most games to get it to work properly. Vsync is a given with Nvidia and Intel. This is extra messing around where it could lead to issues.

I've only tried OptiScaler in Expedition 33 because the 9070xt didn't seem to be any better than my 3080 in image quality/watts but it didn't seem to work. Install a bunch of programs like OptiScaler and in a few years driver issues are way more likely. I could see using OptiScaler with Intel as well, so just Nvidia gets out of this one.

In this textbox, when I move my cursor, it now goes white and is invisible. Goes black when it stops moving. Only with AMD. Why?

The card runs great, better than advertised, but after using it I am more suspicious of interactions with AMD drivers than Windows updates or anything else when I hear of instability. It also seems like it should be good deal for longevity at the 4k60 I prefer since I don't mind dealing with these issues much.
Reply