Hardware
Nvidia 196.75 GPU driver burning up graphics cards
Nvidia has yanked the latest WHQL graphics driver release (196.75) from its website after reports started pouring in about insane temperature increases and card failures. According to affected users, their systems start suffering low frame rates, freezes or even lock downs when playing games. This includes graphically intensive titles like Crysis or the StarCraft 2 Beta, as well as older, less demanding games such as World of Warcraft.
Some users are reporting temperature increases of up to 104 degrees Celsius. The problem seems to be related to the fan controller, with fans slowing down or outright stopping while gaming, and in extreme cases could cause damage to the motherboard or the processor as well. Nvidia is advising anyone who has already installed the latest drivers to go back to the 196.21 WHQL release, which is available from the links below:
Download: Windows XP | XP/2003 64-bit | Windows Vista | Vista 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit
Some users are reporting temperature increases of up to 104 degrees Celsius. The problem seems to be related to the fan controller, with fans slowing down or outright stopping while gaming, and in extreme cases could cause damage to the motherboard or the processor as well. Nvidia is advising anyone who has already installed the latest drivers to go back to the 196.21 WHQL release, which is available from the links below:
Download: Windows XP | XP/2003 64-bit | Windows Vista | Vista 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit
User Comments (85)
Post a comment| klpowell on March 5, 2010 11:34 AM | Wow, what ever happen to doing some QA before you release? Nvida seems to have a problem with trying to move faster than they should in order to keep up with ATI and this is what happens when you let the little things like properly testing a driver get pushed aside to speed up a release. |
| slh28 on March 5, 2010 11:39 AM | Yeah I agree, although it used to be the other way round... hence ATI's bad driver reputation. |
| javierkaiser on March 5, 2010 11:42 AM | Actually, I have those drivers, with a 9800gtx+, and after a few days of normal gaming, I had no issue with the temperature or the speed of the coolers. |
| Timonius on March 5, 2010 11:50 AM | Wow am I ever glad there is no automatic update for this. I still have 196.21. I only check maybe once a month (sometimes longer) for new drivers. I don't know what I'd do if my computer failed (got permanently damaged) due to overheated components. Hmmm...maybe it would be a good thing...maybe I would read more (lol). |
| trillionsin on March 5, 2010 11:50 AM | I havent seemed to have any problems with my EVGA GTX 275. Does anyone know when this driver that they yanked came out? release 196.75 (Maybe I never updated to it?) 
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| zenphic on March 5, 2010 11:51 AM | Yikes, no doubt this will cause more damage to notebook users than desktop users (which usualy has better airflow and thus compensates for the lack of fan control by the drivers). |
| princeton on March 5, 2010 11:53 AM | It hasent affected me. But I do force the fan at 75% 24/7. Also im running a GTX 260 core 216 |
| hamsteyr on March 5, 2010 11:56 AM | Somewhat didn't expect this from nvidia... Disappointed :x how can they let such a big problem slip out...? |
| roopakv on March 5, 2010 11:57 AM | a friend of mine says it heats up like crazy after he got the update... i checked up with him and yes it does.. but we have no way of measuring the temperature exactly... |
| fref on March 5, 2010 12:08 PM | Thanks for the heads up, TechSpot! I won't be taking any chance since I don't have any problem with my current driver anyway. |
| ddg4005 on March 5, 2010 12:15 PM | Looks like I've got some uninstalling to do tonight. I haven't played any games since I installed the new drivers but I don't want to take any chances. |
| Jos on March 5, 2010 12:16 PM | I havent seemed to have any problems with my EVGA GTX 275. It was released on March 2
Does anyone know when this driver that they yanked came out? release 196.75 (Maybe I never updated to it?) |
| Serag on March 5, 2010 12:21 PM | Woha, first of a kind damage to see caused by an official driver O.o Haven't heard of it from friends or so, though, and fortunately I haven't updated myself.. |
| buendia on March 5, 2010 12:24 PM | Wow, that's horrible for Nvidia card owners. I didnt' know that drivers could cause such a wreck. |
| TorturedChaos on March 5, 2010 12:37 PM | I wonder if this would explain why my 2nd PC is running like crap every since I did a reformat a couple a bit ago, and installed the newest drivers for the geforce 7300 in it..... |
| natefalk on March 5, 2010 12:37 PM | I agree. Who releases a driver without fully testing it in a development environment? This is another reason why I will stick with ATI and recommend others to do the same. I've had to replace so many faulty Nvidia cards (at least 5 that I can remember). IMO, ATI cards are built better and last longer. |
| TomSEA on March 5, 2010 12:38 PM | I installed this driver the day it came out and have done some gaming, but not a whole lot. Glad I didn't end up in a 3-hour L4D2 session. Hope I haven't been frying my GPU.... |
| DryIce on March 5, 2010 12:45 PM | I would love to switch to ATI but I've been told I can't run crossfire on an Nvidia chipset. |
| Tekkaraiden on March 5, 2010 12:46 PM | Maybe Nvidia is trying to encourage current owners to buy new cards by melting the old ones. |
| JMMD on March 5, 2010 12:47 PM | I recently updated my drivers but I'm not sure if these are the ones I have or not. I have noticed some odd slow-down in some games. I need to check this when I get home. Maybe a little more time in QA is needed next time. |
| nazartp on March 5, 2010 1:25 PM | natefalk said: I wouldn't go that far as blaming all nVidia cards. The only problems I had so far was with ATI, ironically enough. There are myriads of manufacturers with their own issues and I can't blame chip developer/manufacturer for all the faults. Driver issue is the whole other story.
I agree. Who releases a driver without fully testing it in a development environment? This is another reason why I will stick with ATI and recommend others to do the same. I've had to replace so many faulty Nvidia cards (at least 5 that I can remember). IMO, ATI cards are built better and last longer. |
| codephoenix on March 5, 2010 1:31 PM | My 4850 ran up to 105c until i installed a aftermarket heatsink. does not get past 60c now. |
| paulwuzhere on March 5, 2010 1:40 PM | WOW! How did this slip through testing? Will users be reimbursed for destroyed cards? |
| paynetrain007 on March 5, 2010 1:50 PM | and NVIDIA screws it up again. I thought ATI was known for overheating. |
| compdata on March 5, 2010 1:58 PM | Wow, i will have to check my version when i get home. I don't think i had updated to this yet, but will definitely want to make sure. |
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