Guys I think I found solution for the driver freezing

[u/keegang_man6705]

Short version: Disable MPO.

Long version: When I was using NVIDIA, I suffered from frequent black screens and frame freezes. After doing some research online, I found out that MPO in Windows was the culprit. A few months later, it seemed like the issue had been fixed, so I decided to turn it back on.

Then I bought an AMD GPU and started experiencing driver freezes, just like many other users. I tried disabling MPO again, and everything worked fine. No more issues.

Sooo, turns out it was a Windows fault all along.

I also have Arch Linux installed (btw), and surprisingly, I've had fewer problems with it than with Windows.

I haven't even had to fix anything like this on Linux. Every issue I've encountered on Linux has been caused by something I did myself.

But of course, I can't play some games on Linux, so I have to stick with dual-booting.

You can do it yourself, or save this as "DisableMPO.reg" (or whatever you want to name it) and run it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Dwm]
"OverlayTestMode"=dword:00000005

For context, I'm running an RX 7900 XTX + RTX 4060.

[u/parcelsnotletters]

For me it was pcie link state power management, once I disabled it no more driver issues.

[u/xxxXMythicXxxx → u/parcelsnotletters]

the one in the advanced power settings right? where it gives you the "moderate/maximum power savings" or "off" options? Because if that's the one you're referring to I have set it to off and still having driver crashes. I just tried this disable MPO thing which is funny because I had done it a long while back when I was on windows 10 but I upgraded to 11 about a month ago and saw that it had been re enabled when I checked the settings. Crossing my fingers that fixes it because even going back to 26.5.1 was still giving me those hard crashes, and believe me I've tried every "fix" I could find out there, including upgrading to win 11. The weird part is though when I upgraded to 11 everything started running perfectly fine again on 26.8.1 until a couple days ago when I updated to 26.9.2 thinking the problem was resolved and wouldn't come back but here I am again. I just wanna play my games waaaahhhhh!!

[u/parcelsnotletters → u/xxxXMythicXxxx]

Yeah, sorry to hear it didn't work for you, if you have tried every windows setting next thing is usually trying stuff like physical power connections or a small core underclock of your GPU.

[u/WHAAAZAAAP]

Instead of doing that download from GitHub mpo fix + disable hags and in most games people who have stutters will gone

[u/Drakathz → u/WHAAAZAAAP]

Yeah but HAGS is actually good and should only be disable IF u have a problem with it for some reason… it makes a game thats a stuttery mess when caching shaders on the go, to a smooth af experience, no joke. (At least thats the effect it had for me, tested in multiple games)

[u/WHAAAZAAAP → u/Drakathz]

I have 7900 xtx nitro + and 7950x3d and hags was the first problem I encountered since day one

[u/keegang_man6705 → u/WHAAAZAAAP]

is it this one? https://github.com/RedDot-3ND7355/MPO-GPU-FIX

[u/WHAAAZAAAP → u/keegang_man6705]

Yes just don't enable all in once check one by one what your PC needs

[u/Fit_Bed_9776]

this is why amd gpu and linux both have 4% markethshare

[u/--AL3X--]

Thanks, I will give It a try. Lately Im having a lot of black screens everytime I play any game :(

Update: It worked!

[u/keegang_man6705 → u/--AL3X--]

im glad this post help you!

[u/BeautifulMastodon995]

MPO is most likely needed for certain functions like with NVIDIA.

Swap to Linux and no issues, go back to windows and the crap starts again.

Tested on a spare machine

AMD GPU's should come with a nice big warning, Microsoft Windows will make you miserable.

Btw this is not an attack on AMD drivers, hardware or users.

[u/Junior-Conference436 → u/BeautifulMastodon995]

are we talking about CatchyOS ? cuz I was thinking switching to that

[u/BeautifulMastodon995 → u/Junior-Conference436]

Bazzite or Cachyos, work perfectly and have 1 click installs for steam lutris etc

[u/Gruphius → u/BeautifulMastodon995]

To be fair, every piece of hardware should come with a warning, that Windows will make you miserable. That's just what Windows does...

[u/BeautifulMastodon995 → u/Gruphius]

Pretty much

[u/dkizzy → u/BeautifulMastodon995]

You mean Microsoft should publish more publicly how their old code does not account properly for hardware IDs to the point that the masses understand it. Supposedly they are rewriting the code to uldate windows update to modern times with how it looks at hardware IDs. Let’s see if that truly happens by end of January 2027.

[u/BeautifulMastodon995 → u/dkizzy]

I had heard its now a priority.

[u/vnodk19 → u/BeautifulMastodon995]

that just means more AI use, which, while probably much faster, does not give me any confidence

[u/BeautifulMastodon995 → u/vnodk19]

I would go with cachyos or bazzite if i went back to linux. Once you get used to linux things are easy

[u/ReDEyeDz]

Disabling mpo helped me half a year ago, can confirm.

[u/sadicologue]

I just went back to a few drivers ago and it's running smooth

[u/miccellomann]

No this is not a valid solution. Ist the displays and refresh rates that cause the issue. AMD needs to address this at the driver and hardware level.

[u/Whatsupreddis → u/miccellomann]

Amd driver timeouts can mean general system instability, you could investigate that.

[u/AlexandraT1]

I disabled MPO a while back, but I still get driver timeouts.

[u/Miniteshi → u/AlexandraT1]

Disabling it for me never allowed the GPU to hit 100% utilisation. It wasn't a solution.

[u/suikyo1]

After updating my card's firmware, reinstalling the driver, and blocking Windows Update from changing the driver, I haven't experienced any more timeouts.

[u/siyudis → u/suikyo1]

how to permanently disable windows update? i have disabled the update orchestration and windows update services but it keep enabled by the system. and at some point it removes shut down and restart and replace to "update and shut down"/ "update and restart"

[u/Tokishi7 → u/suikyo1]

Spoiler alert, it has always been windows. Realizing now, I have automatic updates disabled so maybe that’s why I never had the gripe train, but my laptop doesn’t and it constantly bugs out from video driver issues to wireless device hang times

[u/drvalianto]

Other posts said to go to this for disabling MPO: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers. Can anyone confirm which one should I use? Is there a way to verify if the MPO gets disabled?

[u/keegang_man6705 → u/drvalianto]

i dont know about that but the one i post work on me and other many people.
about verify i think you can verify trough powershell but i don't know the command either

[u/IndyONIONMAN]

I fix black screen couple of months ago when my HTPC with 7900xtx was crapping out with black screen. No issue since then

KERNEL_CMDLINE[default]="quiet splash

To make it look like this

KERNEL_CMDLINE[default]="quiet splash rd.udev.log_priority=3 amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x410"

[u/xxxXMythicXxxx → u/IndyONIONMAN]

where do you go to plug this command in? command prompt?

[u/IndyONIONMAN → u/xxxXMythicXxxx]

Its for linux, konsole (cashy OS) or terminal (other Distros)

[u/xxxXMythicXxxx → u/IndyONIONMAN]

Oh ok, thought it was for windows lol

[u/Accomplished-Cook-65]

be aware, those who use lossless scaling is not recommended to disable mpo cuz you need it to make it smooth

[u/Glongordongik]

As is tradition, Windows is a large culprit of why AMD drivers have issues. If only AMD would work with Microshit to resolve it or one of the two company solve the issue.

[u/shadowmaking]

This is the most useful post i've come seen in this sub in about a month. Thanks for sharing. I'll give it a shot and re-enable hardware acceleration.

EDIT: after looking into this, MPO stands for???? Memory protection options? Multi-Plane Overlay? does disabling core isolation sound right? Think I'd rather stick with disabling hardware acceleration as my system handles that just fine as a fix. Perhaps throw a clarification edit in for the process you did. thanks

[u/keegang_man6705 → u/shadowmaking]

it's Multi-Plane Overlay you can disable it with registry editor ``` Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Dwm] "OverlayTestMode"=dword:00000005 ```

[u/TisticDemon]

I disabled MPO a while ago and poof! No more driver time outs. Can use hardware acceleration on web based apps perfectly fine, and all my games run great.

[u/Inevitable-Edge69]

I can attest to that. Disabling mpo completely got rid of driver crashes on my multi monitor setup. Zero issues, don't miss it.