Beware of new NVIDIA driver, it might burn your card

[xXlAinXx]

SO, Nvidia pulling the drivers isn't proof enough? Stop trolling, seriously.

Lemme think about it for ten second.

EDIT:
nope



--
EDIT2:

Something is wrong with those driver? perhaps.. I'm not suggesting to keep em and/or installing em over an less problematic revision and.. I'm not going to denying the fact that nvidia, months after months are releasing bad driver.
I just dont buy the story where the pig's fly.

[BababooeyHTJ]

I have experienced this first had not the burnt gpu, but woke up the other morning of using the new drivers. I've been running gpugrid manually set fans to 100% before I went to bed. Came downstairs and no fan noise but computer was on I figured it restarted in the middle of the night and back to default. Go over to computer gpugrid still running, computer did not restart, and gpu fans were completely off on both my gtx295's. Go to check temp cores were sitting at 120C. Way to fail nvidia Went back into precision and cranked the fans back to 100% and they worked.

I have seen posts like this at several different forums, there clearly is a problem with the driver.

Software can do weird stuff, like I said GPU-z 3.8 was causing a pretty serious bump in my GPU core voltage accompanied by increased temps and rivatuner reporting a higher load than normal.

[JohnZS]

Just thought I would add that I am an nVidia fanboy and even I admit that there is an issue with this driver, FYI this is the first driver that nVidia e-mailed me about advising that I REMOVED the driver from my system.

This along with the following post by an nVidia technical support representative here
Suggest that there is OFFICIAL confirmation from nVidia regarding Fan related issues in the 196.75 driver.
BababooeyHTJ is right, software can do strange things, which is why I think nVidia should have some sort of fail safe option which throttles the cards clock speeds or even shuts them down when they exceed a certain temperature. (This should be hard coded into the BIOS/firmware).
I hope that people who genuinely did have their cards fried by the 196.75 driver are compensated with replacement graphics cards... even IF their card is out of warranty.
John

[Behemot]

BababooeyHTJ is right, software can do strange things, which is why I think nVidia should have some sort of fail safe option which throttles the cards clock speeds or even shuts them down when they exceed a certain temperature. (This should be hard coded into the BIOS/firmware).

Old 6000 series, probably 7000 too and maybe even 8000 had this. This is mad when newer cards don't. NVIDIA is like MS now, throwing away good things and bringing unworkable bull instead

Here are people with high OC in advantage, cause at 120 degrees the comp will get stucked or even restarted....at least this is what I experienced whenever my comp exceeded normal temps (with AMD cards and CPU's too).

[Coldon]

Software can do weird stuff, like I said GPU-z 3.8 was causing a pretty serious bump in my GPU core voltage accompanied by increased temps and rivatuner reporting a higher load than normal.

Any chance the software wasn't reading the sensors properly due to a new driver version, I'm very skeptical that GPUz could modify the voltage regulation in the card.

I've had driver versions where precision could not read the card temps, does that mean that my card had no temperature after I installed the driver.

What nvidia has done is PR damage control, they had two choices either ignore the issue and get flame for that, or recall a driver just in case there was a problem and look like they are being proactive.

there were issues with the 191 drivers that were proven, and yet nvidia didnt do a recall, why? Probably cause the interwebs didn't explode in SC2 fueled nerd rage.

and honestly fan control is a bit of a screw up but its no where closed to the monumental screw up that ATI did with the drivers for the 5 series where my nice new $400 card cant run dual screens without flashing and which STILL hasn't been corrected. On the plus side for these drivers, BFBC2 is running smoother for me compared to the last official 196 version.

[xXlAinXx]

I have seen posts like this at several different forums, there clearly is a problem with the driver.

Software can do weird stuff, like I said GPU-z 3.8 was causing a pretty serious bump in my GPU core voltage accompanied by increased temps and rivatuner reporting a higher load than normal.

FAN cannot goes OFF without some explict modification on the windows registry or some kind of catastrophic hardware failure, even if you fry the card the fan shall still spin on.
On the other hand: to be politically correct, only till the trehsold value is meet, the driver could indeed keep the fan to the initial spin value.

Source:

[BababooeyHTJ]

Any chance the software wasn't reading the sensors properly due to a new driver version, I'm very skeptical that GPUz could modify the voltage regulation in the card.

I've had driver versions where precision could not read the card temps, does that mean that my card had no temperature after I installed the driver.

What nvidia has done is PR damage control, they had two choices either ignore the issue and get flame for that, or recall a driver just in case there was a problem and look like they are being proactive.

there were issues with the 191 drivers that were proven, and yet nvidia didnt do a recall, why? Probably cause the interwebs didn't explode in SC2 fueled nerd rage.

and honestly fan control is a bit of a screw up but its no where closed to the monumental screw up that ATI did with the drivers for the 5 series where my nice new $400 card cant run dual screens without flashing and which STILL hasn't been corrected. On the plus side for these drivers, BFBC2 is running smoother for me compared to the last official 196 version.

I had that problem with GPU-Z under 196.21 and noticed under Rivatuner that my card was drawing more than normal while idle and beforehand Sirius Sam HD made the card run quite a bit hotter than normal so I doubt that it was just readings. I rebooted and just ran GPU-Z without starting any other monitoring software to be sure that was the cause. I also saw a few people reporting GPU-Z 3.8 causing the same thing with ATI cards running the same volterra chips as well. Remember it's not hard to adjust the core voltage via software on these cards there are quite a few programs that do this.

I the fact that this was backed up with higher temps, higher current draw, other software and others reporting the same thing makes me doubt that it was just an issue with readings.

[Pontos]

Just thought I would add that I am an nVidia fanboy and even I admit that there is an issue with this drive.

Wait, does that means that part of being a fanboy is normally denying bad stuff that's confirmed EVEN by the actual company you're loyal to?

[JohnZS]

Wait, does that means that part of being a fanboy is normally denying bad stuff that's confirmed EVEN by the actual company you're loyal to?

Not at all, just there are some people on forums nigh on falling on their own pork swords claiming that nVidia have never released a driver with any problems and that there are no issues at all with 196.75 drivers.

They even go so far as to say that those who had/have issues did not install their drivers properly or RTFM.

I think it is highly unfair to blame end users who have done clean installs, and RTFM'd yet had a graphics card fail on them.

Check this out.

Accusing the drivers of killing your card is like accusing a gun of murder. The responsibility falls to the person holding the gun.

Maybe you installed the drivers incorrectly (IE directly over top of the old drivers)
PSU failed causing a spike.
cold-solder crack
overheating
excessive dust
excessive moisture
failed components
bad memory
dead PCI-e slot
electrostatic discharge
bumps
chip creep
short circuit
or natural electronic device death....

My point is - there is MUCH more than a driver that can cause your card to die.

The dude who posted the above, frequented the nVidia forums and flammed anyone who had an issue with the 196.75 driver, he even called people ignorant sods who said that the driver had an issue.

IMHO that is blind zealousfanboyism, nVidia DID mess up on this one. A new fixed driver should be out very soon.

Not meaning to sound cynical, but I hope this is not a sign of things to come
John

[Chumbucket843]

i did a clean install of this driver and i havnt had any problems. my card folds 24/7 too. i guess my setup is immune to whatever issues this driver has.

[zeroibis]

I think that all we can say right now is that the driver may break your card if your not using liquid cooling. We know that even NVIDIA along with some users here have said that the problem only effects "some" users not "all" users. Therefore it is possible that the problem is caused by a driver conflict or some other error on some machines. These people likely have some similar link between them such as how they installed the driver or what sorts of programs/mods they have. It is also possible that it is not even the drivers fault and is some random app that somehow is messing with it. We just do not know, but we do know that if you use that driver there is a "chance" that your card will get fried.

For now we just need to warn as many people as we can to get off it and then sit back to hear what the real cause was. Or perhaps we could try to see if there is any common link between those who had the problem ourselves.

[JohnZS]

New forceware drivers are en route this week which will resolve this issue.
John

[Mungri]

Stop with the lies!!!

Nvidia drivers and products are perfect and sent to us by God jensen.

This problem was caused by a spy from ATI sneaking into Lord Jensen's HQ and replacing the 196.75 driver with a trojan that shuts the fan down on Nvidia cards.

Rejoice my good fellow Nvidions, it was all ATIs fault.

[Sly Fox]

Stop with the lies!!!

Nvidia drivers and products are perfect and sent to us by God jensen.

This problem was caused by a spy from ATI sneaking into Lord Jensen's HQ and replacing the 196.75 driver with a trojan that shuts the fan down on Nvidia cards.

Rejoice my good fellow Nvidions, it was all ATIs fault.

The sad thing, is that there is undoubtedly at least one person out there who actually believes this.

[Coldon]

Stop with the lies!!!

Nvidia drivers and products are perfect and sent to us by God jensen.

This problem was caused by a spy from ATI sneaking into Lord Jensen's HQ and replacing the 196.75 driver with a trojan that shuts the fan down on Nvidia cards.

Rejoice my good fellow NvidioTs, it was all ATIs fault.

fixed

[Mungri]

Dont use that word that you fix'd, I got in trouble for using it ages ago.

Nvidion is saying it with a little more class and not meaning to offend, just to poke fun at the 'Nvidia is better' crowd.

[Coldon]

hahaha, fanboys make me laugh a bit, ironically I'm waiting for the gtx480 atm, was gonna get a 5870 but i run dual screens and i cant afford to deal with flashing on the second screen... Ironic that its a driver issue that's stopping me from buying the card...