NVIDIA 196.75 Drivers Can Kill Your GPU

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It seems that NVIDIA has pulled its 196.75 drivers because of overheating issues. Apparently there has been a rash of complaints about dead, dying and overheating video cards. The problem seems to be the fan controller in the 196.75 drivers, no word from NVIDIA on the matter yet.

The problem seems to be related to the fan controller, causing the fans to slow down, and even stop. This happening while the card is in use is a very bad thing indeed, and can cause poor performance (as the GPU tries to cool itself down by reducing power) and possibly even overheat your GPU to the point where the card stops working.
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I'm on water so I am good to go but I would be pissed if I was one of the ones with a dead card!!
 
wow. nice to hear about this after the fact.. my 8800gtx actually did die yesterday... caszued endless BSOD. grabbed a GTS250 last night at Bestbuy for $150.. dont really play anything much these days, so didnt need anything more than that for now...

lame that it was because of their craptastic driver. the card was a BFG 8800gtx... didnt even think about warranty...should I? obviously though, I had to have a card asap..so BB was on the way home
 
Meh...who runs stock coolers nowadays? Not a true [H]'er that's who! I kid, I kid!

Since I am on water, this does not affect me either, but it would suck if you fried a card due to this bug.

Reminds me of the time I was gaming for a few hours and started to smell something funny. A few seconds later, I hard locked on the comp. Apparently I never heard it due to the game volume, but my GPU fan literally disintegrated and flew apart in pieces in the case. The temps just sky-rocketed on my 9500 -> 9700 card softmod OC'ed card and I fried it completly.
 
Well that sucks. I'm running that driver now. I'm using Evga Precision to control the fan though, and the fan is the loudest thing in the system (how could I not hear it even on low,lol), so I'm assuming I should be good.

If something happens it will give me an excuse to replace the GTX280 with something with eyefinity *grins an inconspicuous smile towards the fiance*.
 
Oh ok. Now they cop to this??? See my post here about this happening since 191.07.

Maybe now I will stop having to use the Nvidia tools just manually set my fan speed on start up

Dicks
 
Ouch.

Ouch.

Ouch.

This had better be covered by warranty.
 
techrat said:
Ouch.

Ouch.

Ouch.

This had better be covered by warranty.
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Double lifetime warranty on my XFX GTX 280s so if they fry I get new ones anyway and I'll be getting 3 Fermis at the end of the month anyway.

But yeah, this sucks.
 
hmm..this all started when they tried to incorporate flash on the gpu?? frickin adobbe is the sux0rz
 
The biggest question that now remains is how fast nVidia will handle this situation with the physically damaged users, as it is clear that board vendors will have to accept RMAs for the cards, and if there's one thing that we heard from nVidia partners here at CeBIT, that was a collective opinion that they've lost faith in the company. This driver situation certainly didn't help the situation and we see no other but to address those concerns in a separate article.
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http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...racts-whql-certified-gpu-killing-drivers.aspx
 
is this why my 8800gts g92 has been freezing up and running like shit lately? you have got to be kidding me:(
 
I lucked out as I upgraded to these drivers and no issues in the 10+ hours of playing Bad Company 2. It also fixed the scaling aspect ratio problem I had with older games I still play so i'm not rolling back drivers just yet..... /crosses fingers
 
Still using the previous drivers prior to the last set that supposedly did the same thing, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
 
I saw this on some of the WOW news sites, seems blizzard advised it earlier.

Guess this is one way to help clear out old backstock (sarcasm)
 
Wow, dodged a bullet right there. I was about to update for Bad Company 2 but other things in IRL made me forget. Then I saw this on mmo-champion about a blue post from Blizzard advising people to roll back drivers ASAP.
 
It's not a bug, it's a feature....





to get as many of their customers to need new video cards right before fergie comes out...
 
I had upgraded... But all the versions I tried above 196.21 caused massive system instability! Even in 2D!!!
 
195.62: missing temperature monitoring
196.21: blacked Shader clock, broken core/memory contol
196.75: overheating issues
 
well it was a nice run nvidia, you FINALLY made one good chip, the g80/92 and you go and fuck it all up royaly.. luckily ati now has all the same features in catalyst control center that you do, so i have no reason to stay with your shit.

this almost makes a 5850 for $300 seem fair :(
 
Funny how I noticed my video cards running way hotter then before with these drivers on my GTX 260's. so much I was getting problems in BC2 until I cranked up the fan speed on the video card bios.

Now I know why. :eek:
 
firas said:
195.62: missing temperature monitoring
196.21: blacked Shader clock, broken core/memory contol
196.75: overheating issues
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And if the fanboys are to be believed Nvidia's drivers are "perfect" :rolleyes:
 
well, most people here know how to use manual fan control to work around the problem, makes you wonder how both microsoft, who certified them, and nvidia, who tested them both missed it.

It will be really painful for anyone who does not know much about computers and fry's the card due to the drivers.
 
This would explain why my card died a few hours after I updated the drivers. And here I was thinking that I was just playing too much bad company 2.

What I would like to know is how are they going to fix this for the cards that are out of warranty, like mine is.
 
Spudsdude said:
This would explain why my card died a few hours after I updated the drivers. And here I was thinking that I was just playing too much bad company 2.

What I would like to know is how are they going to fix this for the cards that are out of warranty, like mine is.
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fat chance. i think my card is half dead.. it works in older games but newer ones i get artifacting and freezes. they would probably just give us a MIR on a fermi that comes in the form of a debit card that you cant take cash out on, and you must spend the exact dollar amount:rolleyes:
 
Spudsdude said:
This would explain why my card died a few hours after I updated the drivers. And here I was thinking that I was just playing too much bad company 2.

What I would like to know is how are they going to fix this for the cards that are out of warranty, like mine is.
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Class action law suit?
 
I'm really happy that I never upgrade drivers for a few weeks anymore. I've had enough issues with nvidia drivers in the last year to learn that lesson.
 
Yea, just using Precision to set em until this gets fixed. Was wondering why some things were less responsive than usual... lol :|
 
Just happened to me on a 260 55nm. Set precision to 61% fan speed and monitored that in OSD. The fan % held, but the temp soared to 93c. I didn't realized what happened and well...I smell video card! I don't think it's over though. I'm in Windows running fan @ 100% now. I'll def be going back a driver rev however.
 
I was about to upgrade too, phew!

I'm uninstalling nVidia tools though, I don't trust them at all. I'll be going back to EVGA Precision for controlling my temps.
 
Something is still wrong. Temps are 78C according to hwmonitor too...sensor must be fubar cause it's chilly down there.
 
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