Windows update & problems for ATI Radeon integrated graphics

[HCHTech]

We have had 6 calls today from customers whose computers had integrated ATI Radeon HD graphics. It appears that all of them had just loaded the fall creator's update, and the resolution was affected. 5 customers had the 4200 version graphics, and one had 3000 version. None of the available resolution choices returned the screens to a normal appearance. Since we did everything remotely, we couldn't see the actual screens from the customer's perspective. Our remote screen looked fine, but the main description was that the image was stretched horizontally.

We have been able to fix all of them by reloading the older driver (v8.970.100.9001). The simplest way is:

1. In Device Manager, right click on the Display Adapter Driver and choose Update Driver
2. Choose 'Browse my computer'
3. Choose 'Let me pick from a list...'
4. Choose an older driver (in my case it was ATI Radeon HD 4200 Version: 8.970.100.9001 [01/13/2015]) and click Next

Just a head's up.

 

[Umbra]

Yes i can confirm the issue, one of our support team member got hit too.

 

[Metanis]

Yep, I had one of these calls today too. It was complicated by the fact that 1709 had just installed itself too. So I rolled back to 1703 and did the driver rollback too. Then I set her Ethernet to metered and set a tickler for 2 weeks when we will revisit the issue and see if it's been fixed.

 

[RoadRunner]

We had 2 of them as well. Had an old Nvidia card for one client and a later model ATI card had a current driver on the website that fixed it.

 

[chevson]

Thanks for the heads up. Sons computer had this issue this weekend too.

 

[timeshifter]

Thanks so much for posting this. Made me look good

 

[cam w]

Thanks for the warning!

 

[phaZed]

Lol, I got a heads up warning the night before it went down.. my Mom's HP got hit with this. Easy fix. Lots of calls and repairs, thanks MS!

 

[frase]

Awesome thanks heaps HCHTECH had this issue today!

 

[Adept PC Repair]

We have had 6 calls today from customers whose computers had integrated ATI Radeon HD graphics. It appears that all of them had just loaded the fall creator's update, and the resolution was affected. 5 customers had the 4200 version graphics, and one had 3000 version. None of the available resolution choices returned the screens to a normal appearance. Since we did everything remotely, we couldn't see the actual screens from the customer's perspective. Our remote screen looked fine, but the main description was that the image was stretched horizontally.

We have been able to fix all of them by reloading the older driver (v8.970.100.9001). The simplest way is:

1. In Device Manager, right click on the Display Adapter Driver and choose Update Driver
2. Choose 'Browse my computer'
3. Choose 'Let me pick from a list...'
4. Choose an older driver (in my case it was ATI Radeon HD 4200 Version: 8.970.100.9001 [01/13/2015]) and click Next

Just a head's up.

I had this happen on my bench machine which has Radeon 4890 pci-e graphics card. I used the same solution.

 

[phaZed]

So, does anyone think these drivers will get fixed in a timely fashion or is AMD on to their old ways again?

 

[SAFCasper]

So, does anyone think these drivers will get fixed in a timely fashion or is AMD on to their old ways again?

I highly doubt AMD will be doing anything. They've had this statement on the download page for a few years now.

"After five years of active service, the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000, ATI Radeon™ HD 3000, and ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series products reached peak performance optimization on October 15, 2013, and were transitioned to a legacy support lifecycle. No additional driver releases are planned for these products ... "

The latest drivers available for the 3000 series were released 21/01/2013 and intended for Windows 8 (not 8.1).

Lets face it - these graphics chips are over 10 years old now. AMD can't support them forever.

 

[phaZed]

Lets face it - these graphics chips are over 10 years old now. AMD can't support them forever.

Some of the problems are happening on much newer cards. Even then, they are supporting it because the new drivers causing the problems are dated '17 while the driver we are rolling back to is from '15. AMD has marked those 2017 drivers as the ones for installation via Windows Update.

IMO, the problem is a simple one and should be easily fixed. The new 2017 drivers install just fine and the hardware is working, there are simply no available options for changing the resolution past the default 800x600 or 1024x768. Defining the resolution of AMD graphics cards is done by using the registry - usually the driver will populate the registry based on what the monitor EDID(Extended Display Identification Data) reports. So, either the driver has somehow broken EDID (a standard in the industry) or it is failing to write to the registry.

You can add your resolutions manually to a reg key (DALNonStandardModesBCD1) under this dir:

The driver works, AMD just pooched the implementation.

 

[seashore]

Had the same issue yesterday. Did a full wipe and reinstall on a Windows 10 system with onboard Radeon 3000 graphics, ran all updates, then found that only 800x600 and 1024x768 were available. Rather than faff around with older drivers, I installed a 3 year old Win10 compatible card I had gathering dust in stock (cost me £20 three years ago so no resale value) so now at least I know there's only a minimal chance that future Windows updates can screw it up.

 

[fincoder]

ound that only 800x600 and 1024x768 were available

I had the same problem last week with a Toshiba Satellite L500 with Radeon 4000 series graphics, previously upgraded from Win7 and was on Win10 v1703. Upgrade to v1709 and all updates didn't fix it, so I rolled back to the earlier driver as per the original post from @HCHTech. Then using wushowhide.diagcab I prevented the newer driver from installing again (hopefully).

You can add your resolutions manually to a reg key (DALNonStandardModesBCD1)

Thanks for this post. I'm not sure I'll use this method but it's very interesting that a simple registry key fix is all that's needed.

The driver works, AMD just pooched the implementation.

Maybe Microsoft can fix the driver they provide through updates.