This is going to be beyond the scope of the forum, but I don’t give a darn. I went to restart my AMD computer and windows says a program " SmartDC" is preventing my computer from shutting down, so I search google " is SmartDC a worm?" and I get a reddit page , where several AMD ryzen users are complaining of the same problem and having loud fans and screen lock ups and low fps, but no technician has replied to the thread yet.
Searching drive C for " SmartDC" yielded no results, but I thought I would pass along the Intel i have so far . If you game is dragging and your FPS is low, you may want to try a restart and see if " SmartDC " is preventing you from shutting down.
These are the facts i have so far and if anybody knows how to remove this worm or works for an antivirus, help would be greatly appreciated.
have you looked in Task Manger to see if SmartDC is a process / service and see if you can disable , kill it rename it ( Task Manger - Details - open file location). if you cannot rename it download Unlocker from Iobit <safe and free)
I’ve been dealing with the same black-screen issue for 18 months. WoW black-screens typically once per game session, but sometimes goes off its nut and black-screens 4 or 5 times in a row.
I tried A LOT of stuff. (see below for the list 
)
Most recently, I forced my PCIE slot to Gen3 instead of Auto/Gen4. Been running for 48 hours now with no freezing and no performance impact. (I’ve probably jinxed myself now…)
go to amd’s site and take a look at /en/resources/support-articles/faqs/PA-270.html
I’m using a PCIE 4.0 riser, but what will come as a shock to no one, they aren’t exactly the most well-made pieces of tech. I had tried a PCIE 3.0 riser as well and still had the issue. (I even tried without a riser and still had black-screens)
I didn’t read through this whole thread (or search it) to see if anyone else has brought this up, so my apologies if this suggestion is echoing someone else’s.
What have I tried?
RMA: CPU
RMA: GPU
RMA: Motherboard
Bought a 2nd CPU, a 2nd and 3rd motherboard (MSI and Asrock), 3 sets of RAM (G.Skill, Corsair,Crucial), 3 different power supplies (Corsair and 2 Dark Powers). The only thing I didn’t replace were the hard drives. I also tried the latest GPU with and without the PCIE riser and it still black-screened on me.
I’ve tinkered with nearly every BIOS setting I could.
I’ve tried various registry changes in Windows 10 and Windows 11 (TDR, MPO, etc etc)
I’ve tried many versions of Radeon drivers with and without Adrenaline installed.
I rebuilt the OS from scratch more times than I care to admit.
I’ve run bare-bones (no USB devices, etc etc)
GPU/CPU Overclocking/Underclocking, overvolting/undervolting
RAM XMP on and off…the list goes on.
MSI MEG X670E
7950X
7900XTX (Sapphire)
Corsair Vengeance RAM
Currently using a Corsair ax1600i from another build (It’s overkill, but it’s the most reliable/stable PSU I have).
Good luck if you try out this suggestion!
I bought a 7900 xtx and originally stopped playing because of this issue about a year ago. After messing around for the last 40 hours, i seem to have a (possible) temporary fix. (at least to get the game up and running)
TL:DR, uninstall adrenaline and all AMD software completely, download MSI Afterburner for fan curve if wanted, and use default windows drivers. DO NOT try to apply overclock with MSI Afterburner.
MSI Meg Motherboard
5800x3d
32gb 3200mhz ram
7900xtx
2tb NVME Sabrent Drive
Corsair 1200w PSU
How it was discovered:
I was crashing every 20 minutes or so with adrenaline active, having tried minimum settings, dx 11, undervolting, blah blah blah. I came across a post on reddit that indicated uninstalling AMD Adrenaline would fix the issue. after uninstalling, and allowing windows to install basic drivers, the crashing indeed stopped, however my fan was SCREAMING at max rpm under any heat load.
I proceeded to download MSI Afterburner (For the fan control portion) and after setting a fan curve to my liking, resumed the game. Mysteriously, the card was running ~20c cooler (Comparing using CPU-Z) and a lot of the micro-stuttering i was experiencing using the AMD software was gone. Framerates were higher and everything felt generally more pleasant.
It wasn’t until attempting to apply an overclock that the crashing INSTANTLY began again. I tried all of the settings independently, but all of them seemed to be causing the issue. after reverting to the base settings (in afterburner) the game is fully stable with just a fan curve.
In game, i have every setting set to max with no FPS cap on dx12 and it has been 48 hours since the last crash. I am still massively miffed that I do not have access to frame generation, or any of the “AI” features I paid $1,000 for, but at least the game seems to be stable for now.
Hopefully this helps someone else!
I tried using the default Windows drivers, too, but it made no difference for me.
And yeah, I jinxed myself. WoW crashed 5 times in a row tonight.
I just disabled ULPS in the registry as well as Windows “Game Mode” so we’ll see if that makes any difference. If this doesn’t work, I’m going to try disabling PCIE power management in the BIOS.
I’m just about fed-up with this GPU. I can’t imagine this problem happens with every system or there would be a lot more noise about it. Some nuance about our system configurations is just enough to cause a problem and elude AMD and/or Blizzard.
Considering next expansion is up i would highly recommend users that still experience issues to just vote with your wallet and unsubscribe, i personally wasted 200 euros just to not enjoy the expansion at all, any kind of compensation would be useless at this point, because entire expansion has been taken away from me by problems that should not exist.
Unfortunately, this driver timeout issue isn’t isolated to WoW. I’m convinced it’s an AMD and/or Windows problem, but obviously I can’t prove it.
I received another response from AMD and their best advice was to “reinstall windows”. It’s insulting.
I am frustrated and fed-up. I sent them this reply:
" This is not just occurring with World of Warcraft. Even clicking on the Windows Search box is causing driver time-outs. It’s happening in various other games, too.
I’m seriously disappointed with your response. Just google for Radeon 7000 driver timeouts and you’ll see this is not isolated to World of Warcraft. It’s a relatively common issue (far more common than it should be and it definitely shouldn’t still be happening over a year later).
I’ve rebuilt the OS in this thing half a dozen times. I’ve done clean driver installs over and over again.
None of your recommendations are sufficient and “contacting the makers of the game” is just deflecting and insulting.
I spent over $1500 on this GPU and CPU and AMD’s best advice is to “reinstall windows”?
It’s just insulting. AMD knows full well there’s something wrong with their drivers but are either unwilling or unable to solve it.
Your response and AMD’s apparent lack of concern has pushed me to build a replacement system with nVidia/Intel. I don’t like nVidia’s business practices (it’s why I came back to AMD), but at least nVidia’s hardware and drivers work.
I’m afraid you’ve lost a future customer over this and have soured me to ever building an AMD system again. But I think the most frustrating thing is that AMD won’t care that they lost me as a customer. I’m just another disgruntled customer to throw on the statistics pile."
Just start gathering evidence you are clearly not the only one having problems.
Just a head up. Windows Update has corrupted something with Nvidia and AMD so, be on look out for driver timeout.
I’ve read that a ton of you guys actually get the game to boot up, in a blackscreen but atleast it launched “properly”. For me the .exe starts and my cursor changes to the trusty glove but that’s it. Had the game running for over an hour and nothing. It is completely unplayable without the d3d11 workaround.
I’ve saved the data that the AMD’s crash-report program gathers.
btw, AMD responded to my disgruntled email. This time they said “RMA the card with the manufacturer”…sigh
So Sapphire can send me another “refurbished”-but-still-broken GPU? I can’t wait…I was only missing a GPU for 6 weeks last time waiting for them to send me a “replacement”.
“You must send your GPU to us first, we’ll evaluate it, then send you a replacement if your RMA qualifies. Otherwise we’ll send your GPU back postage-due.”
It frustrates the hell out of me that horrible customer service doesn’t automatically tank a company.
I doubt replacing GPU would fix issue judging how many have complained about the same issues, unless that replacement is a NVIDIA gpu but those will have issues sooner or later as well, and it likely start around pre patch for next expansion.
its depressing that it has taken so long for AMD to acknowledge the problems but still haven’t done the right thing yet, even more depressing that Blizzard is ignoring the issues the problems started with pre patch for dragonflight and never got resolved.
Smart DC is part of an Epson suite of programs program called document camera
ATI Radeon video cards of had issues since their inception with compatibility. AMD did not improve the product after they bought it they let them continue making cards the way they’ve always made cards. They are always slow to fix if ever issues with their cards and drivers
I’ve owned ATI and AMD and never had issues with any other game. WoW is the outlier in this case.
You are lucky then. They have issues with many games. The list is long. I could go all the way back to the start . But let’s see the HD series almost all of them overheated. The firmware fix for them overheating cut there performance almost in half. Next candidate. The R series crashes in many AA titles do to memory issues. Never really resolved. Next up to bat the RX xxx cards every other generation of them had issues. And on to current generation card have issues with a long list of AA games. Along with overheating issues. Radeon has always had the philosophy of riding out the warranty instead of a fix. There CPU big fan of
Of all ATI/AMD cards, my 7900 XT is the spiciest I’ve owned, and it’s usually 81/82ºC under load at 330-335w. Still got my X700 Pro Turbo and 4850 HD, though my 2650 HD is MIA. I also have an X800 XL, which I’ve used, but it wasn’t my card, and no idea where it came from. It was prone to getting a bit hot and artifacting exclusively in WoW, but no stability issues.
My 1070 Ti had serious problems with texture flickering in Shadowlands.
WoW has always been the outlier for an established AAA game as far as GPU issues. It’s kind of unfortunate you’ve had many troubles with ATI and AMD, but I’d tell you to buy whatever you’re more comfortable with. I don’t find brand loyalty to be a very consumer-friendly practice in tech.
I actually spend the last 3 months mass reporting issues from users, that i can reproduce starting to see much more improvements, but now i am burned out.
I honestly cant stand the fact right now that i spend 200 euros on a game and was forced to play it in a way that burns me out, because there is no way i am gonna subject my mythic+ groups to me crashing mid run as i like to play tank and healer.
So for first 2-3 months i was only leveling so many alts, and by around early 2023 when i upgraded to 7900 XTX i still crashed i was so burned out i quit while maybe checking every now and then only to quit again.
Be nice if Blizzard could actually compensate me, for all i care by making AMD compensate me there is just no point in picking World of Warcraft up again expansion is 1 month away and i am not buying the next expansion while having been treated this way by Blizzard.
Also my crashes started with pre patch it did not get fixed rolling back GPU drivers, so i blame Blizzard more then AMD.
Anyway back to being depressed.
RDNA3 has much higher power target compared to previous generations so it naturely runs hot, the hotest GPU i have had was a gtx 480 that radiated a ton of heat in the room, because mine was watercooled.
My 7900 XTX only gets about 40c edge 65c hotspot at 22-23c watertemp as its also watercooled, this used to be 92c hotspot 52c edge because stock thermal paste application was trash and pumped out, my current thermal application is just honeywell PTM7950
XFX started using this as well now, Powercolor may have switched to this as well now, and NVIDIA already uses it on their RTX 4090
Anyway first year i had my 6900 XT i had 0 issues i started having issues when i started to play new games, its always with new games because AMD Radeon Driver team neglects optimizing their graphics pipeline probably.
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Microsoft pushes a lot of steath updates along side of seemingly trivial updates. I’m not going spelunking through posts to show it all again, but a lot was changing around that time with Windows.
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Nvidia and AMD were playing whack-a-mole with exploits around that time as well.
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AMD was having issues with Windows+MPO, iirc.
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There were also issues with motherboard “optimized defaults” BIOS settings that were triggering instability issues in certain scenarios.
Basically, this wasn’t just some A/B blame game, there were a lot of moving parts and a lot of potential interactions between them. Regardless, AMD’s problem turned out to be driver issue, they’ve since rectified that issue.
If you’re still having issues, make sure that:
- Windows is on the latest build and fully up to date
- Drivers are fully up to date
- BIOS is up to date
- Ensure that within your BIOS, you select whatever CPU vender default profile, rather than the optimized defaults profile
- That the Adrenalin GPU performance settings are set to the GPU default
- That you have absolutely nothing else running that might use the GPU, like overlays(almost all m/kb softwares have them built in) or browsers
- Do a selective startup to ensure that nothing else is running
- Disable any non-Windows Defender security suites
- Disable any VPNs
- Ensure that you undo any potential registry changes to settings that might have been suggested through placebo guides
and try again.
At any rate, stop repetitively spamming the thread with things that have already been spammed enough. This thread would have likely autolocked a while ago if you didn’t keep bumping it. Blues should probably go ahead and finally lock this one as well, since anything new likely doesn’t pertain the original reasons for this thread being created. People should create a new thread for new issues.
I’ve tried every workaround possible.
Game just crashes now pretty much every single time I start it up.