Updating Catalyst Drivers on P370EM / 7970m CF

Hi everyone!

I've had problems with my 7970m's after they've been replaced by Clevo support after both cards died due to overheating (my heat sink died previously and I didn't notice - that's why).

My cards are untouched (no OC) but I've got the following software issue:

Whenever I boot up windows and instantly launch an application which uses GPU support but doesn't fully "need" the power of the cards, I get a flickering screen. I.e. when the voltage of the cards increases (I guess?), apparently, this causes a screen flickering. The flickering makes everything on the screen unreadable and I essentially have to reboot.

This does not occur while playing games and I have no issues then.

I managed to fix this problem by simply disabling hardware acceleration on Firefox, Flash & Java. Skype, f.e., also causes this problem sometimes while starting up. An easy fix is to launch a game, then start Skype, quickly maximize the game again so that the card's voltage is increased - then the flickering doesn't occur.

What I'll try now is updating my drivers. I didn't try that previously as I managed to bypass this problem, but now, during my vacation, I'll have plenty of time to re-install Windows if anything goes wrong.

Now my question: What do I need to consider while upgrading my drivers? Is it enough to download the standard driver from the AMD homepage or do I need to remove the drivers beforehand? I've read on different topics that it's necessary to completely remove all AMD drivers beforehand. Is this really necessary?

Thanks for reading!

 

You can update over the existing driver with the one you download from AMD's site. If you continue to run into problems, you'll want to thoroughly remove the driver and CCC, and then reinstall the stock driver. If the stock driver works okay, try updating over that one more time.