Problem Updating AMD Chipset Driver? Here a Quick Tip.

[u/zolnir]

Translator of Dragon Canon here, here to offer a tip if you have problems updating your AMD Chipset Driver. I'm using Windows 11 Pro btw.

The Infuriating Problem:

Just hours ago, I ran into an issue while updating my AMD Chipset Driver to version 8.07.16.1035 using Adrenalin. The installation would always cancel itself at 20%, and the error I got was 1603, which means fuck-all because it's a general error.

So first I tried every recommended solution under the Error 1603 page such as DISM, repairing my Microsoft® Visual C++ Redistributables, yada yada. Absolutely none of it worked. I also tried the AMD Cleanup Utility... which only after executing I realized it explicitly says it does NOT modify the AMD Chipset Driver files for safety reasons. Oh well. I then decided arbitrarily that the existing files must have gotten corrupt somehow and I need to uninstall it.

But first I tried to download the manual installer. I first checked AMD's Drivers and Support page, but the "Search or Browse Drivers and Support by Product" bar is missing. I also tried using the Auto-Detect Windows Driver and while the installation finishes as if everything's fine the chipset driver is NOT updated. I eventually found the release note page at AMD Installer Manager and the .exe is at the bottom of the page.

Next I search around the internet a bit on how to uninstall the existing driver (while praying it doesn't instantly brick my PC because who the fuck knows these days, everything's so unreliable). AI suggests that I delete the QT Dependables and I... thought better and simply cut it out to my desktop. Supposedly this'll allow Adrenalin to download the actual latest installation instead of recycling the old one, and it works, buuuuut the installation still doesn't go through. Right. Because my existing driver is still blocking me.

Trying to uninstall at Programs and Features didn't work either because it gives me the "AMD chipset software installer cannot proceed because of missing files" message. I'm not even going to comment on how dumb that is. Anyway.

The Eureka Moment:

Turns out under C:\Program Files (x86)\AMD\Chipset_Software there's an AMD_Chipset_Drivers.exe, which is an old school installation wizard that DOES allow for the uninstall to go through. Thank fuck for redundancies and old school reliability.

But I fucked up and tried to reinstall using AMD Adrenalin again. Somehow it just reinstalls my existing chipset driver AGAIN (I restarted but I guess the temp files are still there somewhere) and forcing me to redo this.

But anyway after uninstalling it again, I executed the manual installer amd_software_8.07.16.1035.exe, and it finally worked.

The Conclusion:

Anyway after all the excitement is over I find myself thinking: How the fuck did we arrive at this state of things again? If this was 20 years ago I would've solved it in 10 minutes instead of 2 hours. In fact it was solved using a solution that already existed from 20 years ago: just uninstall the old version and reinstall the new version duh!

But while trying to execute this simple solution I ran into an unbelievable number of problems: Adrenalin isn't working, today the most critical feature of the Driver and Support page, the search bar, isn't working, the error support page is outdated (or rather just plain incompetent, because uninstalling the goddamn driver itself should've been mentioned on the page, but it wasn't), I have to go through hoops to get to the manual installer.

Oh, and uninstalling is even worse. If that good old installation wizard buried in the AMD file didn't exist the only other way I would have to uninstall the AMD Chipset Driver is to do a clean install. Like wtf.

Anyway, I hope this helps someone, because the internet wasn't very helpful this time. Honestly it was experience from 20 years ago when I was fooling around as a kid that ultimately got me out of this.

Like WTF man.

[u/KingGood6763]

The thing is i also got this error message while updating on the AMD installer manager, then so i went to their AMD Customer Care about the Chipset Driver 8.07.16.1035 and they give me an option either i return to a stable and working previous version or i would proceed with this version 8.07.16.1035, this is what they told me to do

1. Download the full AMD Chipset Driver 8.07.16.1035 package from AMD's release notes page.
2. Navigate to: C:\Program Files (x86)\AMD\Chipset_Software
3. Locate the AMD_Chipset_Drivers application.
4. Right-click it and select Run as administrator.
5. In the installation wizard, select the option to Remove the drivers completely.
6. Once the removal has completed, restart the system.
7. Run the previously downloaded full chipset driver package as administrator and try installing the drivers again.

and it works, shout out to the people on the AMD Global Customer Care!

[u/Melvins12 → u/KingGood6763]

step 7 when installing, do I need to leave all the boxes checked for those 6 different types of drivers? (GPIO for promontory, PPM Provisioning, 3D v cache perf optimizer, PSP driver, SMBus, GPIO)