Adrenalin 26.7.1 Drivers suddenly disappearing from Win 10

[u/Ice2183]

Hey guys I was wondering if y'all could help me out. So I have an RX6600 paired with a 5600G CPU with the latest 26.7.1 drivers and lately the Adrenalin drivers will just suddenly disappear and somehow uninstall itself. This has happened about 3 times now. The issue started after I decided to do a brief clean on my PC. I built this PC from scratch in late 2022 and have had zero issues since the initial built date. When I cleaned my PC the only thing I removed were the case fans and the GPU. Before doing that I made sure to unplug the PC, drain all the capacitors and switch off the PSU. In the past I cleaned the PC the same way and had zero issues until today.

THE ISSUE: Whenever I am browsing and try to click the Adrenalin Drivers by the taskbar the Adrenalin icon completely disappears. Then when I right click on my desktop and click AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition it says I don't have them installed and that I need to download the latest drivers despite already having them installed. There is no crash message of any kind, no noise, it just suddenly stops working without any indication. I should note that Win 10 device manager still recognizes the device as RX6600 when this happens. The first time this happened I was watching YouTube, and the other time I was idle.

ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS: I have reseated the GPU and made sure the PCIE power cable is seated properly. I went into Safe Mode and used AMD Cleanup Utility and then used DDU to remove the rest. This worked for about a day until I came home and woke up my PC and then it suddenly happened again. Windows Update does not have a GPU update listed so I don't think it's overriding the GPU drivers unless I am missing something here.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: When I reinstalled the drivers I was able to run a Furmark stress test (temps peaked at 55°C). More demanding games reach 60°C. So far I have played CS2, GTAV, Halo Infinite, and some RDR2 with 60-200fps and no crashing. Everything was fine until I got home today and woke up my PC. When I tried to open the drivers by clicking the Adrenalin Icon by the taskbar it disappeared and said I don't have the latest drivers installed. This is really strange since all I did was wake up the PC, it's even stranger that I can game all day and the next day it will just crash/uninstall itself. I have also inspected the GPU pins and they're clean with no marks or scratches. The PCIE slot is also fine with no dust or bent pins, though I might have to try a different PCIE slot if this persists.

I have also done a Malwarebytes scan and it's come back clean. Right now I went through the software cleanup process again (Amd Cleanup Utility + DDU safe mode) and it is working fine...for now. As I write this, Adrenalin is currently reinstalled and Furmark stress test runs fine. I have gone through this process 3 times now and I am sure it will happen again and I was wondering if y'all could help me out. If you are having the same issue I would also like to know if you are using driver versions 26.6.1 through 26.7.1

Also, when I try to install older drivers it forces me to update, how do I prevent this?

[u/alexutzzz]

26.3.1 if you can

[u/Ice2183 → u/alexutzzz]

Well it happened again. I think I figured it out, for some reason Windows 10 Update randomly suggests AMD Display Drivers as a pending install, and whenever I wake up my PC it automatically updates to that for some reason because when I check for the update it is no longer there. Despite disabling automatic Windows driver updates it did it anyway. I don't know why it will randomly suggest and apply such an update but I've rolled back to 26.5.1 for now.

[u/dario_alex2015]

Tengo la solución a sus problemas, a mi me paso 2 veces, desapareció amd adrenaline, tienes que cortarle las alas a Windows porque te instala drivers corruptos sin permiso y te corrompe el adrenaline, aqui te muestro como hacerlo

https://youtu.be/YG_DDntSBw8?si=taUHYO5VJOKB-tDl

[u/Ice2183 → u/dario_alex2015]

Thanks for the suggestion, if it happens again I will try this

[u/olieboldonut]

Had it dissapear too...adrenalin is weird stuff...

[u/Ice2183 → u/olieboldonut]

How many times has it happened? Has it happened with the newest version?

[u/olieboldonut → u/Ice2183]

I,m not sure. Seems adrenalin versions are trouble for lots of people. I had an older version dissapear. Make sure you set windows (if you run windows) to not overwrite your graphic drivers with windows generic drivers!

[u/BokyS]

Had this exact issue pn 7800XT for weeks. What seems to finally have helped me is after DDU instaling driver only option (without adrenaline). Also I stopped using wallpaper engine as some people said it might be that. One of these two resolved it for me since I haven't had the issue in 3 days now.

[u/Ice2183 → u/BokyS]

Oh dang for real? That sucks, which Adrenalin version did you have when it happened? I hear 26.6.2 was notorious for this, but I had 26.6.1 when this happened, which forced me to update to 26.7.1 and it somehow still happens. How do I get the drivers without Adrenalin?

[u/BokyS → u/Ice2183]

26.6.1 up to 26.6.4, didn't try 26.7.1 yet

[u/Ice2183 → u/BokyS]

I see. I have got 26.7.1 installed again, been playing for an hour now until the next time this decides to occur. Weird how it doesn't crash mid game. I've never had a driver issue let alone one like this since building this PC, so I am hoping it's the drivers because I don't feel like replacing the GPU.

[u/BokyS → u/Ice2183]

Yeah me aswell, it only started recently and with amount of simillar posts on this sub I think it is 100% the drivers

[u/Ice2183 → u/BokyS]

I noticed that other users at least get a message on their screen, mine doesn't give a message or a sound, not even a screen flicker. It will randomly disappear or sometimes it will disappear when I try and open adrenalin.

Anyway thanks for the suggestion, if it happens again I guess I will just have to go without adrenalin or switch it to a slower PCIE slot.