Why did I get this update from Microsoft

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I received Advanced Micro Devices Inc – Other Hardware AMD SMBus” (30kb) on W7/64 desktop through windows update on Mar 26, 2017. Considering it showed up as Optional and references AMD, I assumed it to be a driver update. It is dated 2015 and there is no further info provided by MS other than it is for AMD systems. No indication what it fixes. There is no recent warnings on this on the AMD website either, except for a SMB security issue – that was fixed in the security package in March.

When I display AMDbus in the Windows device manager, it shows as working properly. On the AMD website, I checked the SMBus and there are 3 drivers ranging from 2MB to 9MB, so I assume that this driver being sent from Microsoft at 30kb, is a null driver. So MS is not fixing a driver issue, they are just setting an indicator for the operating system that it does not need to call on a driver for this hardware. Is that correct? I have no need to install it?

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I suggest you check out @canadian-tech’s response on answers.microsoft.com. It seems to relate to your query.

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There have been some SMBus drivers from the motherboard makers that have caused BSODs, ASACPI.sys was one that was also packaged as part of several ASUS utilies: http://www.carrona.org/drivers/driver.php?id=ASACPI.sys

My experience was of 3 ‘random’ BSODs over 8 months, I then removed the driver via Device Manager and left the SMBus without a driver, no trouble after that, no drop in performance either. Sometimes no driver is better than the alternative.

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Kirsty

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