New Intel Arc A770 driver is causing Starfield crashes, fan problems, and PC freezes

[AngelOfThyNight]

New Intel Arc A770 driver is causing Starfield crashes, fan problems, and PC freezes

[html]The latest Intel Arc A770 firmware has caused issues for the Acer 16GB model, as users report fan issues and PC freezes when rendering video.
                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                               
                           
                           

                               

It seems the latest Intel Arc driver update has caused an array of unintended issues with the Acer Predator BiFrost model of the A770 GPU. In an attempt to add more stable support for Starfield's launch last week, Intel sent out two updates to the A770 in late August/early September. While these have had mixed results for A770 cards trying to play the game, it seems to have caused inadvertent problems for the 16GB Acer version.

The list of issues includes disruption to the way the graphics card's fans operate, causing them to whir up in a pulsing rhythm every few seconds. For many, this only seems to be fixable by setting a higher manual percentage value on the fan outputs, frustrating many owners into more noise and higher power usage.

This issue seems to be caused by an inability of Acer's fans to operate at lower percentages. One Reddit poster said, "The fan curve from Predator Bifrost starts at 20% since this card doesn't have a low power mode, when the step in the fan curve is below 30%, the fan will go to 0%, for this to stop, you need to set a custom fan curve or a fixed one with a value above 30%."

Although a GitHUB ticket made by Acer A770 users suggested using DDU software to revert the driver back to an older version, some are finding the frustrating fan behavior persists after this.

(Image credit: Future / Duncan Robertson)

From the looks of that ticket, the issue seems to be fairly widespread, with one Intel engineer in the thread saying "This issue is one of the top priorities for our dev teams, they are working on this as we speak. We understand the frustration this causes, but rest assured we share and push all your comments to our dev teams."

Folks with the Acer Predator BiFrost Intel Arc A770 (myself included) have also reported problems when trying to export or render video. In many cases, this causes an entire gaming PC to freeze, or in better cases, a much slower export process.

Although unconfirmed, it would appear these issues are the result of a new Firmware update being lumped into the driver update - something you couldn't opt out of if you were an A770 user who just wanted the latest drivers for playing Starfield.