Historical Note: This post was written in 2018 for the HP Envy x360 with AMD Ryzen 5 2500U and Vega 8 graphics. If you're running a newer model or updated Windows version, you may not experience these issues. Driver support has improved significantly since this was written.
Disclaimer: Back up all your files before making driver changes. If something goes wrong, you may need to format the machine. This was especially true with the older drivers, but better safe than sorry.
The Problem
Windows 10 would crash constantly on the HP Envy x360 with the Ryzen 5 2500U processor and Vega 8 graphics. The stability was so poor the laptop was nearly unusable.
Crashes happened most often when watching video on Facebook or YouTube. The driver that came with the machine (version 22.19.665.1 from HP) was a disaster.
Quick Fix for Chrome Users
Before messing with drivers, try this Chrome fix first. Credit to Olorin Henderson for finding this one.
Open Chrome and type chrome://flags in the address bar. Search for "ANGLE" and find the "Choose ANGLE graphics backend" flag.
Change it to OpenGL, then click the relaunch button at the bottom.
This resolves Chrome crashes without disabling hardware acceleration. The problem is actually in the DirectX 11 handling between Chrome and Vega drivers. OpenGL doesn't have the same issues and actually brings better performance.
Note: If you do design work, this fix might cause problems with some development software and plugins. Use your judgment.
The Old Way: Disable Hardware Acceleration
This was the first workaround, but it's inefficient. Only use this if the Chrome fix doesn't work for your browser.
In Chrome: Settings → Show advanced settings → System → Uncheck "Use hardware acceleration when available" and restart.
Brave and Firefox have similar settings.
Driver Updates
The real fix is getting a better driver. HP's version is garbage. You can download non-vendor versions from the Microsoft Update Catalog.
I tested multiple versions over several months. Here's what worked:
Driver Version 24.20.11016.12001
This one ran stable for months with no crashes I could attribute to the video driver. It's the one I'd recommend if you're still running this hardware.
Download from Microsoft Update Catalog
Installing the Driver
Download the .cab file and extract it with 7-Zip. Windows doesn't have a built-in extractor for cab files.
Right-click the file, go to 7-Zip, and use "Extract to" to put the contents in a folder.
Once extracted:
- Type "device manager" in the Windows search
- Go to Display adapters and expand the menu
- Right-click on AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics
- Click Update Driver
- Click "Browse my computer for driver software"
- Click "Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer"
- Click "Have Disk"
- Browse to the folder where you extracted the driver
- Copy the folder path from the address bar and paste it into the disk location
- Select AMD Radeon(TM) Vega 8 Graphics and hit next
Your screen may go black during installation. Give it a few minutes to finish before doing anything. The computer should boot back up with the new driver.
BIOS Update
If you have the HP Envy x360, there's also a BIOS update that helps stability. Get it from the HP support site.
The BIOS update takes a while to install and it screwed up my Windows Hello face recognition, but I was able to reset it without a problem.
Drivers to Avoid
I tested some AMD drivers directly from AMD (version 25.20.15011.1004) and they caused more problems than they solved. Lost the ability to dim the screen and had other weird issues.
Stick with the Microsoft catalog versions.
Bottom Line
This laptop had serious driver issues when it first came out. The Chrome OpenGL fix helped with browser crashes, and the updated Microsoft driver (24.20.11016.12001) made the system actually usable.
If you're still running this hardware, those two fixes should get you sorted. If you're shopping for a new laptop, AMD's driver support has gotten way better since 2018.