const date = '06.01.2014';
Win7 Amd/Ati drivers 12.10 and 13.12

Problems after downgrading AMD/ATI radeon drivers

I was searching the Internet for information why Mechwarrior Online does not use my Radeon 6950 in 100%. I found information that downgrading amd/ati radeon drivers to 12.10 version (I had 13.12 ver) may help. So I uninstalled 13.12 from “Add or Remove programs” then downloaded 12.10 version and installed it. Unfortunately that operation totally destabilized my PC... After long investigation I found that this downgrade had broken my Direct3D. But the symptoms was really strange:
  • While launching steam there was “Steam client bootstrapper has stopped working” error
  • I couldn't start Mechwarrior Online. The launcher was starting but after clicking “Play” nothing was happening.
  • Launching “dxdiag” was giving “DxDiag has detected that there might have been a problem accessing Direct3D” error.
I realized that this last one is a major issue. Uncle Google said that there is no option to reinstall DirectX neither the Direct3D. Only tips was to update them to the newest version. Unfortunately I had the newest version so the installer didn't want to update a thing. Reinstalling drivers and many other things didn't help neither.

Workaround

The funny thing is that there is a workaraound for this problem. I could run everything properly in “Windows 7 compatibility mode” plus “Run as administrator”. Steam, Mechwarrior Online, everything was working.

Solution

The only thing that really solved the issue was Display Driver Uninstaller.
  1. Download DDU (I used 10.0 version from here)
  2. Uninstall the AMD/ATI radeon drivers through the “Add or remove programs”
  3. Restart your system into safe mode
  4. Use the downloaded DDU to clear your system from any AMD/ATI files
After restart you should be able to run DxDiag without any errors. That means the problem is solved. You can now safely install any version of AMD/ATI drivers.

If you, after downgrading your drivers, also have problems with running Catalyst Control Centre you can see this post.
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Comments (4)

D

Dmaster

I followed you from the seven forums and my solution was a complete format (it was past due anyway)... But sure glad you found a solution
U

Unearthed

Had almost same issue ... followed your rules, and so far it seems to have worked ... used DDU version 13 .... got and HP with AMD A6-3400M APU with AMD Radeon 6520G.....just did the solution, seems ok ... the Direct3D error from dxdiag is gone at least .... will test further, but overall system seems a LOT more stable at this time ... thanks a lot! :-)
M

magoalbi

10x a lot for this great tip! I had a similar problem: my screen frozen (random but mostly while playing any games). It happened after I deleted (my bad) some files in the ATI folder. I did try lot of time to reinstall new/old drivers but any time I tried to make a "clean" reinstallation, i got always an error. Checking on the web the code errore was related to a path-drivers error. Any unistallation utility worked, neither the ATI one. DDU, instead, made a great job!
R

Rychu

I'm glad that I could help :)

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