Hi everyone,
I'm sharing a troubleshooting case involving my AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT. After several hours of testing, I managed to restore normal Windows shutdown behavior by reverting to my previous graphics driver.
Hopefully, this helps someone experiencing the same issue.
My PC configuration
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
Motherboard: Gigabyte X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING
BIOS: F65 (October 2025)
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
OS: Windows 11 (currently 26H2)
Graphics driver before the issue: 32.0.22042.14002
What happened
On November 13, 2026, Windows Update automatically installed:
AMD Display Driver 32.0.31044.16
Within minutes of the update, my PC started experiencing serious power-management problems.
Selecting Shut down caused the computer to restart instead.
Sleep and Hibernate also caused unexpected restarts.
The screen turned black, but the fans kept spinning before the Gigabyte boot logo appeared again.
Windows startup became noticeably slower.
I later manually upgraded Windows to 26H2, hoping it would fix the issue. However, the problem had already started before that upgrade and persisted afterward.
Errors recorded by Windows
Windows Reliability Monitor and diagnostic dumps showed:
LiveKernelEvent 193 – VIDEO_DXGKRNL_LIVEDUMP
LiveKernelEvent 124 – multiple WHEA-related machine-check errors
Kernel-Power Event ID 41
Unexpected shutdown events
The earliest WATCHDOG dump was recorded at approximately 04:15 on November 13, shortly after the driver update.
These errors do not independently prove a GPU hardware fault.
Troubleshooting performed
I tried the following:
Disabled Windows Fast Startup and hibernation – no improvement.
Disabled Wake on LAN and checked BIOS power settings – no improvement.
Booted Windows in Safe Mode – shutdown worked correctly.
Performed a clean boot – the issue persisted.
Tested basic video boot settings – the issue persisted.
Disabled the Radeon RX 9070 XT in Device Manager – shutdown worked correctly, and Windows startup became much faster.
Used AMD Cleanup Utility to remove the existing graphics drivers.
Tried AMD Adrenalin 26.10.1 with the Driver Only installation option – an unexpected restart occurred during installation, and the shutdown problem persisted.
The solution that worked
I decided to restore the exact driver version that had worked reliably before the issue:
AMD Display Driver 32.0.22042.14002 (April 30, 2026)
I downloaded it from the Microsoft Update Catalog:
https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=32.0.22042.14002
The correct package explicitly supported my RX 9070 XT.
My hardware ID was:
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_7550&SUBSYS_88111EAE&REV_C0
I extracted the CAB archive using 7-Zip, preserving its folder structure, and installed the driver using:
Device Manager → Display adapters → Microsoft Basic Display Adapter → Update driver → Browse my computer for drivers
I selected the extracted folder and included subfolders.
Windows successfully installed driver 32.0.22042.14002, without the AMD Adrenalin application.
Result
After restoring the older driver:
Windows recognized my RX 9070 XT correctly.
The driver version was confirmed as 32.0.22042.14002.
The PC finally shut down normally again.
I have confirmed the shutdown fix. Longer-term stability, Sleep and Hibernate still need additional verification.
Conclusion
On my system, this strongly suggests a driver regression or compatibility issue associated with the newer AMD graphics drivers.
This does not establish that driver 32.0.31044.16 is defective for everyone, and the WHEA errors mean that hardware stability cannot be completely ruled out.
However, reverting to the previously stable Windows Update driver resolved my shutdown issue.
I hope this case helps other RX 9070 XT owners experiencing similar symptoms.
If anyone has encountered this with driver 32.0.31044.16, I'd be interested to hear about your experience.