Both companies just released new GPU drivers that could potentially harm your system.

This hasn't been a good week for those of you who use video cards from either Nvidia or AMD. Chances are, that's probably all of you reading this. Both companies released new video drivers that could possibly cause either increased sustained CPU usage after exiting a game or, in the case of AMD, destroying your Windows install.

Let's start with Nvidia's relatively minor issue first. If you installed the newest 531.18 driver update, you may notice your fans continue spinning at a higher than normal rate even after exiting a video game. According to a report from videocardz.com, this is due to a bug which causes the Nvidia Container process to eat up 10-15% of your CPU after you close a game. This bug won't pop up every time you exit a game and may not happen to you at all.

Nvidia seems to be aware of the issue and is expected to release a hotfix on March 7th. Until then, you can tackle this issue by force closing "Nvidia Container" from your Task Manager if you see it eating up the CPU cycles after you close a game. You can also restart your computer. If you don't want to wait for the hotfix update, you can simply roll back to a previous driver version.

I personally encountered this issue once after playing a game. The method of just force closing Nvidia Container worked fine.

Those of you with AMD hardware may encounter a bug that could potentially destroy your install of Windows forcing you to take some "exotic steps" to fix on your current install. Those running the Adrenalin 23.2.1 drive update from February or the newer 23.2.2 version should be aware that this issue exists.

The issue in question seems to happen when users check the box to perform a "factory reset" clean install of the new drivers rather than just upgrading the new drivers on top of the old ones. This "factory reset" install seemed to also coincide with a silent Windows update running in the background. Once the step came in the Adrenalin install to reboot the machine, the system entered into a boot loop where it would reboot, then give the dreaded BSOD, and repeat.


According to PCWorld's Brad Chacos, he was able to fix this issue by forcing the machine into Windows Recovery. Once there, he was able to select "System Restore" to roll his machine back to a point from February. He notes that trying "Startup Repair" did not fix the issue and, in fact, only the issue worse.

To get into Windows Recovery outside of Windows may take a little trial and error. Depending on how your system is configured, you may need only press either the F9, F11, or F12 key during initial boot to enter into Windows Recovery. If that doesn't work, you can create a bootable USB drive and click on "Repair your computer" on the screen that shows up. A final option, one that Chacos had to utilize, is to turn your computer on, wait for the first sign of Windows loading, and then immediately hit (or hold for 10 seconds) the power button to turn off your machine. Power the system back on and repeat the same thing. Do this a few more times until the system automatically enters into Windows Recovery.

If for some reason you do not have a restore point from before the issues began, you may need to wipe your Windows install and begin fresh.

To avoid having to deal with this issue in the first place, at least until AMD gets a fixed release out, do NOT check the box that allows the Adrenalin software to perform a "factory reset" when doing a driver update. AMD also says that users should "ensure all system updates are applied or paused before installing the driver."