New AMD 'Crimson' drivers damage videocards due to overheating

AMD has confirmed its new Crimson drivers can cause videocards to overheat. The Crimson drivers are the successors to AMD's famous Catalyst software and after users starting to install the new drivers many found their videocard started to overheat.

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Some cards have an overheat protection which means they disable themselves after they exceed a certain temperature. Apparently this doesn't work properly or is not a feature of all cards as some users report their card got damaged nevertheless.

The culprit is the Crimson software that sets the speed of the fans to a maximum of 30%. Cards that need more cooling of fans therefore don't get sufficiently cooled and overheat. This is especially the case when playing games that require a lot of video card performance.

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AMD has recognized the problem and has announced on Twitter that it plans to release a hotfix today. As a temporarily workaround users can manually change the fan speed to 100% or change back to the latest version of the Catalyst drivers. When users change the fan speed manually, they still have to keep an eye on it, to make sure the drivers haven't automatically reset the value.

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