AMD Confirms GPU Drivers Are Overclocking CPUs Without Asking Users

This week we reported, we reported that AMD GPU Drivers were changing settings on Ryzen processors without prompting the user. Today, AMD eventually commented on the issue and confirmed the bug.

“We are aware of an issue with the AMD software package that is adjusting certain settings with AMD processors for some users. We are investigating the issue and will share more information as soon as we can.“said a representative of the brand to Tom’s Hardware.

The issues were reported by users who complained about the CPU being overclocked without their consent. Among all this, the German portal Igor’s Lab shed some light, and said that the GPU drivers were the source of the problemsaffecting hardware for those with AMD CPUs and GPUs combined, thus not affecting PCs with Intel processors or NVIDIA graphics cards.

Since the AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin update 21.9.1, released in September last year, the developer has included an automatic overclocking function for AMD systems in its software, which can be accessed in the “Performance” tab of the program. . The initial idea behind the functionality was to make the overclocking experience easier for the user.

With all this said, it seems that the problem occurs when applying a GPU profile in the AMD driver. which may end up changing the BIOS settings to enable automatic CPU overclocking, which is a bit crazy and results in PC instability in most cases.

As we always comment when we are consulted, it is not recommended to overclock any system because it can lead to exactly these problems that we are talking about. Also, overclocking AMD CPUs voids the product warranty (this is hard to check, but that’s what AMD says).