Nvidia Pulls Graphics Card-frying 196.75 Driver

[NoGooD]

Here's an article I ran across this morning for those of you who may not have come across it. Figured I'd pass it along since there's bound to be some people around here that have experienced problems with this particular driver.

 

Link to article: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-196.75-drivers-over-heating,9802.html

 

Hopefully this will help someone save their GFX card.

 

 

Nvidia has pulled its 196.75 driver amid complaints that it's malfunctioning and frying graphics cards.

 

According to incgamers, several people have had their PC or video cards croak after installing the Nvidia 196.75 drivers. StarCraft II Beta players were the first to notice a problem and following complaints that it was something to do with the latest patch from Blizzard, Blizzard tech support explained that the problem is Nvidia's latest driver and Starcraft II Beta is not the only application affected

 

Blizzard says the problem has to do with the driver's fans control not working properly. This in turn causes the card to overheat and in some cases it can cause video card, motherboard and/or processor damage. Blizzard support has instructed all players to uninstall the driver immediately and use the older 196.21.

 

"We're getting reports where users are getting intermittent low FPS after installing these drivers. It seems that it is related to the fan control included in these drivers not working correctly and is causing the video card to overheat on 3D applications. This will affect Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Please uninstall the drivers and revert back to the older ones."

 

When contacted by incgamers, Nvidia said it was aware of the issue and that the drivers had been pulled until they can verify a root cause.

 

"We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com. Until we can verify and root cause this issue, we recommend that customers stay with, or return to 196.21 WHQL drivers. Release 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our Web site in the meantime."

 

We'll keep you posted on this one. In the meantime, has anyone experienced this particular problem? Let us know in the comments below.

 

Source : Tom's Hardware US

[thundercunt]

I am running this driver in SLI with no problems... Wish me luck lols

[AzuShika]

Though, you'd think that if it were getting too hot that the FPS would stay low, not just intermittently get low.

[NoGooD]

TBH this doesn't affect me since I'm using an ATI card, but hoped it would be helpful for someone else.

 

I agree with you Azu that the FPS should drop off as the card got hot, but I've also had an old Nvidia card with a dead fan and the FPS would fluctuate like crazy until it finally overheated and became unplayable. It made for some crazy looking gfx though...it changed the colors on certain textures to some kind of neon rainbow.

 

I yanked the card and replaced the fan shortly before I decided to buy the ati4870. It still works, but it has never been the same and the FPS went from 50-76 on most maps to 20-30.

 

BTW Thunder..GL man. I'm sure in a week or two Nvidia will come out saying it's because of malware on the system, and Even balance will reply they aren't malware.

Edited March 6, 2010 by NoGooD

[JoeDirt]

Yes I can confirm that there is an overheating issue, both my dad and sister have nvidia cards and both were crashing upon closer look card temp was the issue, reverted to old ones and issue is gone.

[AzuShika]

Just get aftermarket cooling.

Problem solved. :3

[OnionKnight]

So for people who use those drivers they get false fan speed readings? (Thunderrrr you probably should uninstall those drivers =P)

[thundercunt]

I rolled it back today. Still no problems but better safe than sorry.