Following the release of AMD's new Crimson Driver software, some users reported that it has killed their AMD Radeon graphics cards. Today, AMD acknowledged the issue and promised to release a hotfix soon.
AMD's sub-reddit is full of posts from users reporting that the new Crimson Driver has locked their overclocked cards fan speed to 20% of its full speed, thus burning the cards or destroying its components during hefty gameplay sessions.
We are aware of low fan speed reports on select GPUs with Radeon Software Crimson Edition. We intend to publish a hotfix on Monday.
— AMD Radeon Graphics (@AMDRadeon) November 29, 2015
From user reports, it looks like a bug in the Crimson Driver locks fan speed to "low speed" when resetting OverDrive settings. Fortunately, it is still possible to use MSI Afterburner software to override fan speed or re-enable automatic fan speed control.
Modern graphics cards should have protection mechanisms in place to prevent overheating, but it seems that they aren't up to snuff in some Radeon cards or they were overridden by the Crimson Driver.
Update
AMD released the promised hotfix.
AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.11.1 Driver Update is now available for download. https://t.co/rGKX0pbUIO
— AMD Radeon Graphics (@AMDRadeon) December 1, 2015
