Windows 7 Critical Security Update Broke AMD Driver?

[AManWithPlan]

Gentlemen,

 

I just fixed my father's computer last night, but the symptoms were abnormal to say the least.

 

My father's computer is about 5 years old, he's running an AMD processor, a Radeon 7700 graphics card, and DDR3 RAM with a 650 watt power supply. Mostly ASUS and Corsair. The overall build was $700. He calls me last night telling me that for the past few days he's been having his games (he only plays World of Warships and Diablo 3) crash within a few minutes of gameplay. But they wouldn't just crash, they would flicker and scanline his screen until eventually going full gray and irrecoverable, and ending in a blue screen.

 

I came over, launched WoWS, and saw the behavior. Immediately guessed an overheat. So I reset his computer and ran GPUZ and CPUZ. Neither chip ran hotter than 61 degrees before the flickering+crash. So I figured it must be a VRM that shorted. Put my fingers on all the VRMs, none felt hot at all before crashing.

 

Puzzled, I start thinking maybe there is a power draw problem from the PSU. So I monitor it and notice that during the flickering it's dropping from 206 watts to 196, AHA! Found the culprit! Unplug the PSU, plug the computer directly into the wall, but then it still flickers into a gray screen lock up. What?

 

Fine, maybe the power supply is still the problem. It's modular, so I switch cable outputs that go to the VGA card. Still get a freeze. Alright, let's stress test the power supply without using the graphics card. I run Intel's BurnTest for 10 minutes, drawing 250+ watts of power, no issues.

 

Is it the game? I launch Diablo 3, have the same exact type of crash. Is it the AMD driver? I roll it back. Same crash.

 

At this point, I surrender. I'm 95% confident the graphics card is bad and it's not a heat issue. I tell him we're going to have to replace it but I'd like to stress the card to 100% to see if it fails faster or not. I download Unigine and run it on settings that only give me 30fps. 3 minutes, still running. 10 minutes, still running. No flickers. GPU at 100% entire time.

 

What the hell is going on? I go into Event Viewer. Every crash was associated with Kernel-Power ID 41, completely useless diagnostically.

 

Did I just fix it somehow and not even notice what I did? I run WoWS and it won't even let me launch the software, just gives error message. Ok, now THAT is fishy. I look at his update history in Windows Recovery. I LONG disabled his Windows updates because I believe a stable system needs 0 updates (don't want to argue this). He has received 6 "critical" updates from Microsoft starting March 22, 2017. These are "security" updates. They installed passed me disabling them, and back on Windows 7 you could actually stop updates, unlike Windows 10.

 

I roll his computer back to March 18, 2017. No issues. Both WoWS and Diablo 3 work flawlessly.

 

What in the hell Microsoft? Not only do you install your broken trash updates against my settings but you BREAK AMD GFX DRIVERS????

 

This cost me 3 hours of time. I also now believe that Microsoft is intentionally breaking former versions of Windows to get you to upgrade to 10. A new Apple in the mix.

 

Anyone else have catastrophic failures with the March Security Updates?

 

 

[The Sloth]

Microsoft is trying its best to kill off window 7 and 8. 

[AManWithPlan]

1 minute ago, nerdslayer1 said:

windows is trying its best to kill off window 7 and 8. 

I swear I am starting to believe it.

[Mr.Meerkat]

3 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

windows is trying its best to kill off window 7 and 8. 

*microsoft  

[Mira Yurizaki]

5 minutes ago, AManWithPlan said:

What in the hell Microsoft? Not only do you install your broken trash updates against my settings but you BREAK AMD GFX DRIVERS????

That's the thing, they're only broken on your system with your configuration. They most likely worked fine up at Redmond, where they have a different system and different configuration.

 

When you have hundreds of millions of users with what may as well be hundreds of millions of combinations, the chances of your software breaking may as well be 100%.

[LabRat]

wouldn't put it past microsoft. for a time you had to be very careful what you downloaded. I always read the information before installing anything. not too many people do that.

the rollback could have removed bad graphics drivers. wouldn't be the first time i saw drivers ruin a card.

a several year old computer should be cleaned good. including thermal paste on the cpu and gpu. and don't exclude fans in the system.

I would also disable any auto update features from any of my software and do it manually diligently.

that includes drivers for hardware.

and don't expect hardware to last forever. cpu's, ram, PS's graphics cards all fail sooner or later.

 

 

[AManWithPlan]

Just now, M.Yurizaki said:

That's the thing, they're only broken on your system with your configuration. They most likely worked fine up at Redmond, where they have a different system and different configuration.

 

When you have hundreds of millions of users with what may as well be hundreds of millions of combinations, the chances of your software breaking may as well be 100%.

I'm with you, but I EXPLICITLY set to not download or install ANY updates of ANY kind from Microsoft. If they are forcing an update on my computer for whatever reason for a software I paid for, at the very least do not break my computer (or in this case my dad's). It's not a lot to ask.

[AManWithPlan]

1 minute ago, LabRat said:

wouldn't put it past microsoft. for a time you had to be very careful what you downloaded. I always read the information before installing anything. not too many people do that.

the rollback could have removed bad graphics drivers. wouldn't be the first time i saw drivers ruin a card.

a several year old computer should be cleaned good. including thermal paste on the cpu and gpu. and don't exclude fans in the system.

I would also disable any auto update features from any of my software and do it manually diligently.

that includes drivers for hardware.

and don't expect hardware to last forever. cpu's, ram, PS's graphics cards all fail sooner or later.

 

 

I have never had a piece of non-harddrive hardware fail me after functioning for a year with ONE exception (a Sound Blaster sound card).

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, AManWithPlan said:

If they are forcing an update on my computer for whatever reason for a software I paid for, at the very least do not break my computer (or in this case my dad's). It's not a lot to ask.

That's not something they can guarantee.

[AManWithPlan]

Just now, M.Yurizaki said:

That's not something they can guarantee.

The don't force an install, and you've guaranteed it.

[AresKrieger]

2 minutes ago, AManWithPlan said:

I'm with you, but I EXPLICITLY set to not download or install ANY updates of ANY kind from Microsoft. If they are forcing an update on my computer for whatever reason for a software I paid for, at the very least do not break my computer (or in this case my dad's). It's not a lot to ask.

Kill the service, thats what I did. Merely selected do not install isn't enough

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, AManWithPlan said:

The don't force an install, and you've guaranteed it.

I mean, this is a catch-22 for Microsoft. Either you force install security updates so when that zero-day exploit comes you're protected at the risk of issues like this. Or you don't and someone gets pwned and complains to Microsoft they didn't warn them about some exploit that needed patching or whatever.

 

I mean, maybe it would be nice to have the option of never getting updates, provided you are given a big fat warning that you must sign off saying you can't blame Microsoft for any problems that arise because you didn't update.

[AManWithPlan]

1 minute ago, AresKrieger said:

Kill the service, thats what I did. Merely selected do not install isn't enough

Right, if it was my computer I'd be diligent with it. Back when I set it up for my dad it was enough to just turn the updates off. Now it no longer is. I can't keep up with his as well as all of my computers. I use Windows 10 on my machines and run two separate softwares for keeping privacy ticked (Microsoft unticks it with nearly every update) and to prevent updates.

[AManWithPlan]

Just now, M.Yurizaki said:

I mean, this is a catch-22 for Microsoft. Either you force install security updates so when that zero-day exploit comes you're protected at the risk of issues like this. Or you don't and someone gets pwned and complains to Microsoft they didn't warn them about some exploit that needed patching or whatever.

 

I mean, maybe it would be nice to have the option of never getting updates, provided you are given a big fat warning that you must sign off saying you can't blame Microsoft for any problems that arise.

Modern viruses don't crash computers, they keylog and collect financial data about you. Maybe encrypt your drive and charge you for the key. There are insurances against all of this.

 

I haven't had a virus in 7+ years on any of my machines. I have had Microsoft/Java updates absolutely DESTROY a machine 2 times in the past 7 years.

[Mira Yurizaki]

4 minutes ago, AManWithPlan said:

Modern viruses don't crash computers, they keylog and collect financial data about you. Maybe encrypt your drive and charge you for the key. There are insurances against all of this.

 

I haven't had a virus in 7+ years on any of my machines. I have had Microsoft/Java updates absolutely DESTROY a machine 2 times in the past 7 years.

That's because viruses aren't a thing any more. It's all about poking holes at security and finding ways to either execute arbitrary code or get admin privileges. If a user can do either of those, it doesn't matter what else you did, your computer is now under their control. And to a crime ring, making your computer its slave is more valuable than simply destroying it.

 

Also it's easy to point at the last thing that caused a problem, but that doesn't mean it's actually the problem. For example, the A20 bug. As soon as x86 could address more than 20 bits of memory, applications broke. Was it because they added more address space? No.

[bgibbz]

9 minutes ago, AManWithPlan said:

The don't force an install, and you've guaranteed it.

You have to think bigger picture here. Most people use OEM systems that Microsoft likely guarantees compatibility with. In addition, most people aren't skilled or knowledgeable enough to know the importance/ how to update windows. While you are part of the "its not broken don't fix it" crowd, most people want any potential security vulnerabilities patched. Due to that, Microsoft automatically installs updates. 

That being said, there is a very significant amount of people out there that would rather not get any kind of updates whatsoever. The fact that it isnt a (working) checkbox in control panel is pretty ridiculous. 

[AManWithPlan]

6 minutes ago, bgibbz said:

That being said, there is a very significant amount of people out there that would rather not get any kind of updates whatsoever. The fact that it isnt a (working) checkbox in control panel is pretty ridiculous. 

My point exactly. I stopped all updates after I had a minor Java update destroy a raid array along with my motherboard's ability to register a PCIE device as bootable. No clue how Java had access to anything that would impact such operation.

 

I haven't had an issue since. I do the same with web browsers now as well. When Chrome dropped support of NPAPI, I couldn't watch hockey anymore on NHL.com. Had to roll back to an older version that I have been using since.

Stable > any possible update you can ever get (if you know what you are doing)

[Zodiark1593]

15 minutes ago, bgibbz said:

You have to think bigger picture here. Most people use OEM systems that Microsoft likely guarantees compatibility with. In addition, most people aren't skilled or knowledgeable enough to know the importance/ how to update windows. While you are part of the "its not broken don't fix it" crowd, most people want any potential security vulnerabilities patched. Due to that, Microsoft automatically installs updates. 

That being said, there is a very significant amount of people out there that would rather not get any kind of updates whatsoever. The fact that it isnt a (working) checkbox in control panel is pretty ridiculous. 

I do updates every once in a blue moon, partially due to a 5 GB data cap, partially because my main pc is rarely on the Internet, and partially because I don't feel like troubleshooting broken updates on said data cap. 

 

That said, I'll probably update when that new Redstone update launches, probably after a few days to see what problems are like to occur. 

[AManWithPlan]

Looks like the computer died anyway, even after being stable for a day on the rollback. Feels like GFX card is bad. Will be replacing tonight and will keep you posted.

[BorisPavlov]

Dude, the computer is not dying. I have the same issue. It continues about a month. 
I stopped the win updates from the settings. It didn't work. I stopped them form the services. It doesn't work either. 

I made about 6-7 times system restore. And it helped. Until the next this shitty update runs back in my system.

I also thought this is a hardware problem, which have been confirmed by the technicians. They reballed the pins of the GPU with no effect. After that I discovered the sys restore fix. 

But... sooner or later I have to think about constant solution. Or reinstalling windows, which is total absurd. Or finding a good way to uninstall my AMD driver and install it back in working mode. 

 

Hope this helps somehow

 

[AManWithPlan]

Alright, wanted to update this.

 

GFX card may or may not have been bad. Too late now, it's replaced.

 

Mobo may or may not have been bad. Too late now, it's replaced.

 

Memtest86 shows nothing for original RAM.

 

PSU can draw all the way up to 500+ watts for hours with no issue.

 

Tried disabling all overclocking (it was very modest, nothing that would even begin stability issues), but now I am having one of the strangest ghost-inducing problems I've ever seen on a machine. The damn thing doesn't always post on first power on attempt. Sometimes it takes 2, sometimes 20.

 

Once the machine posts and boots into Windows, there are hardly any issues, an occasional crash here and there as Windows machines tend to have (don't worry Apple is worse, not comparing here). However, I can't figure out why it won't post on first attempt, and if it does, it will hard crash right before getting into Windows 10 (tried to upgrade to avoid earlier problems, I gave in, and I feel awful about it, don't rub any salt please).

 

BIOS is the latest 2016 revision, same behavior with or without OC settings (even on a completely CMOS cleared BIOS). It will power on, fans spin, all is well, but no video. It will stay like this indefinitely until shutting down. Hitting the power button again shuts machine down 98% of the time, but one time it actually made it post (what?).

 

Once you shut the machine down, and start it back up again, you see video, it posts just fine and boots into Windows 10 with no further issues.

 

I am beyond stumped. Any thoughts? I've read all over that its rejecting RAM settings, but again it doesn't matter if I use XMP or JEDEC, same results. Single RAM stick, same results.