FW16 AMD driver timeout, every game crashes

Community Support
1

Hello, I have a Framework 16 from batch 7 that seems to have some trouble running games. Pretty much any game that I try to play will crash anywhere from 1-5 minutes of gameplay. The ‘crashes’ are basically the game freezes, audio will play for a few seconds more, and on my laptop screen I see the AMD driver error reporter pop-up on my task bar while the game is still frozen on my screen. I use a second monitor to play games on which is how I can see the bug reporter pop-up.

  • DIY Edition FW16 with AMD 7700s DGPU
  • Samsung 970 Evo 1Tb SSD with FW supplied ram
  • Windows 11 22H2
  • I have my second monitor pluged into the port on the GPU, a keyboard, a mouse, and a Scarlett Focusrite 2i4 plugged into separate USB A expansion cards all on the right side of the laptop.
  • Games I have had crash on me so far are Elden Ring, Dragons Dogma 2, and Red Dead Redemption 2. I have more I still need to test.
  • Things I have tried to resolve the crashes include:
    –Disabling Windows MPO
    –Using a USB C expansion card for my second deisplay instead of the USB C on the GPU
    –Changing the AMD Mux from SmartAccess Graphics to Hybrid Graphics
    –I have tried Power Saver, Balanced, and Performance power profiles

I can’t find many solutions online or anyone with the framework reporting these same issues so I’m sure what is wrong in my case. I would appreciate any ideas that might help my issues and I can add any information that might help diagnose this.

2

Have you tried the new BIOS and Drivers? You can find them here: Framework Laptop 16 Ryzen 7040 BIOS 3.03 Release and Driver Bundle BETA - #18 by QAM

3

New BIOS and Drivers did not fix it, but thank you. I have also noticed I have loud coil whine on the DGPU and I can play games just fine using the iGPU if I make windows use it for them.

4

Hi Robert,

Congrats on your FW16. That sounds like a possible hardware issue with the expansion bay. You might want to submit a ticket with support so they can track and help you resolve it. Lots of people have been gaming heavily with the FW16 and the expansion bay from what I have read. I do not have one but the the few older games I threw at the stock graphics worked like a charm.

Is there a utility to track the thermals of the expansion card? 1-5 minutes sounds about right for something overheating and the card hard dropping the output.

This might be a stupid question too; there is hot air coming from them though right? I read about someone’s regular expansion bay that the fans simply were not working. Ideally you would be able to see the fan speed and thermals of the video card when it is being taxed.

Let us know how it turns out.

1 Like
5

Using HWINFO64 to track the GPU only reached 45 degrees Celsius before the driver timeout.

6

You might want to check for any AMD software running in the background and shut it down, possible using task manager. I think the AMD software is interfering with the laptop functionality.
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7

Did you ever find a solution to this?
Just opening the browser and trying to pay something on YouTube in getting that and the performance isn’t great after it stabilizes.
Games seem to be fine though.

8

I ended up contacting framework support and exchanging the GPU, after troubleshooting with them we determined mine was faulty.

9

And hopefully that fixed it for you.
Maybe my apu is bad. It happens without the gpu installed in my case.
Slightly different issue as games seem to run fine in my instance though.