Experiencing permanent freezes/lock-ups after 16.12.2 update | Win10

Hey guys,

after my Radeon Center repeatedly asked me to upgrade to the current driver version 16.12.2, which I already had installed as seen in the Radeon Center upgrade section (?), I decided to uninstall all AMD entries featured at the Windows 10 program summary and uninstall screen and further deleted all AMD labeled folders on drive "C". After rebooting I continued to redownload the current version of AMDs Radeon Center, installed it and then proceeded to download the latest driver via Radeon Center, that was recommended (being version 16.12.2). After rebooting the PC things were fine and I could either run my browser, graphic processing programs as well as multimedia tasks like games.

Problems kicked in the next day when - after rebooting and passing the lock-in screen - the desktop locked up completely, and my mouse froze. This occurred after launching Firefox and opening a new page while moving around my mouse. After the resulting forced restart I noticed that this happens whenever I decide to launch a program and start to move the mouse for a few seconds, or even more of an issue, directly after trying to uninstall a program via Windows 10 program summary and uninstall screen, or when trying to install an application such as AMDs driver clean uninstall suite or a new Radeon Center install package. Desktop and all running applications instantly freeze and there's no way out except of a forced restart which will lead to the same problem over and over again. Windows automatic repair screen appears occasionally when booting, but without success in dealing with the key problem here.

My solution strategy was to reboot in safe mode and ran the AMDs uninstall utility there, successfully as it seemed at first but a normal restart revealed this had only changed the screen resolution. This is a massive problem for me as I’m no longer able to properly, or more likely use my PC at all. It’s in the nature of the problem that the freezes also lock me out of most ways to fix the problem myself as I’m no longer able to reinstall or uninstall anything. All ideas are welcome. What should I do?

Thanks in advance,
JR

Thanks for your help man, I found out a solution in the meantime. The freezes were nothing directly related to AMDs latest driver, at least not exactly and even a visit to my local PC service shop couldn't reproduce and thus not reveal the problem and its source. But I remebered that after the driver update and rebooting, the audio settings changed meaning not the PCIe card but the onboard solution were set as standard. I just clicked the sound symbol in the taskbar and changed the audio output. Something that was done within 5 seconds but which would completly render my PC unusable for a straight 48 hours period. So allI had to change was setting the output back to the onboard solution and proceeding to the device manager where I could set the PCIe card as default device for audio output. My system runs smooth as ever after a reboot.

Would you believe that's all? Would have never expected such consequences related to something as minor as sound settings.