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