As was recently discovered by an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 owner on Reddit, there is apparently a conflict between Windows 11's built-in driver management tools and ASUS's proprietary power profiles. After leaving their Zephyrus G14 laptop, with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti dGPU, in Eco Mode for a number of weeks, Reddit user u/OK-Horse-3169 switched their laptop back into performance mode in order to play some games, only to discover that Windows had deleted the GPU driver. According to ASUS's support documentation, this is expected behavior.

As it turns out, on basically any laptop with a MUX switch that disables the dGPU entirely, Windows 11 will automatically remove the drivers, because the driver is no longer necessary for a device that's no longer connected—it treats it much like it would a removable USB drive or peripheral. The source of the problem, as discovered by the redditor, is called pnpclean.dll, a maintenance task that deletes the aforementioned drivers if a device hasn't been connected for 15-30 days. After the driver was deleted, Windows recognized the user's RTX 5070 Ti as a generic display adaptor until the driver was reinstalled.

AMD has released a new GPU driver update for its older "Polaris" and "Vega" GPU architectures, which are now almost a decade old. The latest Adrenalin Edition 26.5.2 drivers, released a few days ago, are specifically designed for these two architectures, which were AMD's popular gaming GPUs before the RDNA 1.0 generation. Interestingly, the Adrenalin Edition 26.5.2 driver update for "Polaris" and "Vega" GPU architectures includes only a single fix: resolving an application crash issue in Apex Legends on Radeon RX 400/500 series graphics cards. No other changes have been made, aside from updating this driver version from the August 2025 release of Adrenalin Edition 25.8.1 for these two GPU architectures.

Officially, the driver supports Radeon RX 400, Radeon RX 500, Radeon 500X, Radeon RX Vega, Radeon VII, Radeon Pro Duo, and Radeon 600 Mobile GPUs, which encompass all the series AMD released based on these GPU architectures. As some may recall, AMD's "Polaris" debuted in 2016 for OEM systems and appeared in 2017 for gaming GPUs, while the "Vega" GPU generation lasted until 2019, with the Radeon VII being AMD's last release. Although these GPU architectures have been replaced by RDNA, they have lost some relevance, but there are still millions of these GPUs in use worldwide, prompting AMD to issue a few final fixes like the one we see today.

Microsoft is finally changing how the Windows 11 operating system installs GPU drivers. According to the latest document, Microsoft is introducing a new method to manage driver installation in Windows 11, aiming to prevent the previous issue where the system would automatically install GPU drivers, overriding newer installations and potentially downgrading them to older versions. To address this, Microsoft is simplifying its hardware identification targeting system from a four-part stack to a new two-part model. Reportedly, the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) will now combine the Hardware ID (HWID) and Computer Hardware ID (CHID) into a new target, ensuring that the installed version is the newest and preventing downgrades.

PC OEMs are known for bundling older drivers with their PCs. By the time these PCs reach consumers, they are often months old and running outdated drivers. When performing a system update through Microsoft Windows Update, these PCs wouldn't download the latest GPU driver versions and were often left with these old versions. Microsoft now hopes to introduce this two-part driver update system by the end of 2026 or possibly early 2027 if development takes longer.

Qualcomm recently announced the Snapdragon X2 Elite and Elite Extreme, which appear to be putting up some respectable CPU and GPU benchmarks, but there hasn't been much word on Linux compatibility until now. A recent Linux driver patch sees the start of adding open source driver support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 series GPUs in the X2 Elite SoC to the open-source Qualcomm MSM Direct Rendering Management driver. The patch submission specifically calls out changes to the driver that were necessary because of the new slice-based architecture, as well as changes that allow for higher current draw and necessary thermal mitigations.

The development team also mentioned that Mesa and Vulkan support for the Adreno 840 and other 800 series Arm GPUs is currently work-in-progress and "will be posted in the near future". For reference, when it comes to the previous Snapdragon X Elite launch, there were significant driver updates as recently as July 2025, so even if the Qualcomm team is working on Linux driver support, it might be a while before Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme laptops are actually at feature-parity with x86 systems on Linux.

Intel has reportedly split its driver branches for its older processors, with the 11th-14th Gen Core processors now on a separate iGPU driver branch compared to the newer CPU models. According to the latest driver release dated September 19th, Intel supplies Intel Graphics Driver 32.0.101.7076 for 11th-14th Gen Intel Core processor graphics, separating the support for integrated graphics into "Arc"-based and non-Arc-based models. The 11th Gen Intel "Rocket Lake" Core processors feature UHD Graphics 750, while the 12th Gen "Alder Lake", 13th Gen "Raptor Lake", and 14th Gen "Raptor Lake Refresh" Core processors feature UHD Graphics 770 GPU, all based on Intel's older "Iris" architecture. Hence, Intel decided to separate these older "Iris" variations from its newest "Arc" driver support branch, possibly assigning different support teams to the iGPU driver support.

The current cross-architecture package, v32.0.101.7029, continues to support Intel "Arc" as well as "Iris Xe" integrated designs while listing compatibility with 11th-Gen CPUs and newer. Separately, Intel published a slightly newer iGPU-focused release, v32.0.101.7076, that targets the non-Arc integrated graphics used on 11th-14th-Gen Core processors (the Iris/UHD variants). The existence of a dedicated v7076 branch implies Intel consolidated a set of iGPU-specific tweaks—performance and power/frequency profiles, accumulated bug fixes and platform adjustments—into a parallel maintenance stream before rolling broader Arc/Iris Xe updates through the v7029 line.

Update September 23, 07:00 UTC: Intel has confirmed that the iGPU driver is splitting into two branches. Intel 11th-14th Gen iGPUs will now get only quarterly updates for critical fixes and security vulnerabilities. Additionally, day zero game support will be no longer be a priority for these models. Instead, Intel is focusing on its Arc-based stack.

AMD has released the latest version of Adrenalin Edition graphics drivers, version 24.4.1 WHQL. It includes support for the upcoming Manor Lords game, as well as add performance improvements for HELLDIVERS 2 game, and adds AMD HYPR-Tune support to Nightingale and SKULL AND BONES games. New drivers also expand Vulkan API extensions support with VK_KHR_shader_maximal_reconvergence and VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering_local_read, as well as include support and optimizations for Topaz Gigapixel AI application, versions 7.1.0 and 7.1.1, with new "Recovery" and "Low Resolution" AI upscaling features.

New AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 24.4.1 WHQL drivers come with several fixes, including performance improvements for HELLDIVERS 2, fix for intermittent application crash in Lords of the Fallen on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, various artifact issues in SnowRunner and Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition on Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, fix for intermittent application crash or driver timeout in Overwatch 2 when Radeon Boost is enabled on Radeon RX 6000 and above series graphics cards, intermittent crash while changing Anti-Aliasing settings in Enshrouded on Radeon 7000 series graphics cards, and various application freeze or crash issues with the SteamVR while using Quest Link on Meta Quest 2 or when screen sharing with Microsoft Teams.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 24.4.1 WHQL

AMD has released its latest Adrenalin drivers for Radeon graphics cards. With support dating back to RX 400, the latest Adrenalin 23.3.1 WHQL drivers bring a lot of improvements to the table, as well as support for Halo Infinite Ray Tracing Update and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty game. Most importantly, the new driver has a series of fixes, including intermittent driver timeout, system freeze, or BSOD, with the latest Radeon RX 7000 series. Problems in games such as Premium Gold Packs in EA SPORTS FIFA 23 and Dying Light 2 lighting effects corruption have been fixed. As far as Radeon RX 6000 series goes, this driver release manages to fix corruption in certain scenes with ray tracing enabled observed in the Returnal game. Check the list below for the entire set of changes.Download: AMD Radeon Graphics Drivers 23.3.1 WHQL here.

A few days ago, we found out that NVIDIA corporation has been hacked and that attackers managed to steal around 1 TB of sensitive data from the company. This includes various kinds of files like GPU driver and GPU firmware source codes and something a bit more interesting. The LAPSUS$ hacking group responsible for the attack is now threatening to "help mining and gaming community" by releasing a bypass solution for the Lite Hash Rate (LHR) GPU hash rate limiter. As the group notes, the full LHR V2 workaround for anything between GA102-GA104 is on sale and is ready for further spreading.

Additionally, the hacking group is making blackmailing claims that the company should remove the LHR from its software or share details of the "hw folder," presumably a hardware folder with various confidential schematics and hardware information. NVIDIA did not respond to these claims and had no official statement regarding the situation other than acknowledging that they are investigating an incident.Update 01:01 UTC: The hackers have released part of their files to the public. It's a 18.8 GB RAR file, which uncompresses to over 400,000 (!) files occupying 75 GB, it's mostly source code.

During the first day of the Snapdragon Tech Summit Digital, Qualcomm Incorporated President, Cristiano Amon took the virtual stage with global industry leaders to highlight the critical role Qualcomm Snapdragon 8-Series mobile platforms have played to drive experiences forward for the next generation of devices. Qualcomm Technologies' innovation in the premium tier, coupled with the evolution of 5G, is accelerating and continuing to redefine immersive consumer experiences. The proliferation of these premium tier experiences has and will continue to enrich the lives of billions of smartphone users around the world.

"Creating premium experiences takes a relentless focus on innovation. It takes long term commitment, even in the face of immense uncertainty," said Cristiano Amon, president, Qualcomm Incorporated. "It takes an organization that's focused on tomorrow, to continue to deliver the technologies that redefine premium experiences."

AMD today released the latest update to their Radeon GPU drivers, the Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2. We took a detailed look at it which you can read here, and it is a fairly big update bringing a lot of added features- some of which were user requested such as additional settings and per-display color controls, and others aiming to improve user experience such as Enhanced Sync to lower game animation stutter and also input latency. There have also been improvements to ReLive streaming, as well as an addition of a new GPU Profiler tool for developers.

Note that AMD is no longer supporting Windows 8/8.1 with newer RX 400 and 500 series (and also upcoming RX Vega). When asked about this, AMD provided the following statement: "With the declining use of Windows 8.1 we have focused our efforts on providing the best experience on the operating systems that the vast majority of our users are now using. Although we no longer officially support Windows 8.1, users can try the Windows 7 driver on an "as-is" basis."

As always, you can grab the drivers from our Downloads Section right here: AMD Crimson ReLive Edition 17.7.2 Drivers