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NVIDIA pulls potentially-lethal 196.75 GeForce driver

by Parm Mann on 5 March 2010, 11:38

Tags: NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

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Numerous gamers have reported that NVIDIA's latest WHQL-certified driver release - v196.75 - is causing GeForce graphics cards to overheat, and in some cases fail beyond repair.

The reports, many of which originate from NVIDIA's own support forums, have resulted in the GPU giant pulling its latest drivers from its website. In a statement, NVIDIA recommends users roll back to an older driver release whilst it attempts to solve the issue.

"We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com," said the company in a statement.

"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."

According to reports, NVIDIA's 196.75 driver release isn't adjusting fan speeds as required when graphics cards are put under load during demanding activities such as 3D gaming. As a result, users are likely to experience extremely high GPU temperatures, with one gamer already witnessing temperatures of up to 104°C whilst playing StarCraft 2.

Game developer Blizzard has responded by recommending users with an NVIDIA graphics card revert back to older drivers.

"We're getting reports where users are getting intermittent low FPS after installing these drivers [196.75]. 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", said a Blizzard representative.

Have you experienced any GPU overheating problems using NVIDIA's latest driver release? Let us know in the HEXUS.community forums.



HEXUS Forums :: 18 Comments

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Not the publicity they want right now….
I've been running the 32 bit XP ones since they came out and haven't noticed anything odd but then I've not done much gaming to test them. Reverting to 196.21 just to be on the safe side.
Like Jaffo, been running new ones on 8800GT for a few days since swapping around some hardware here in the office. It is only being used for light 3D and extensive 2D-DirectDraw work (full screen) but no obvious problems. Glad I didn't stick it on the SLI rig tho - that was today's job!

Other sites seem to reference blizzard, so I'm guessing it is mostly affecting people doing long-session 3D gaming.
Irien
Like Jaffo, been running new ones on 8800GT for a few days since swapping around some hardware here in the office. It is only being used for light 3D and extensive 2D-DirectDraw work (full screen) but no obvious problems. Glad I didn't stick it on the SLI rig tho - that was today's job!

Other sites seem to reference blizzard, so I'm guessing it is mostly affecting people doing long-session 3D gaming.

Seems Blizzard are getting a bit of flack recently due to their Authenticators being broken so now the codes are known for some models etc. Think there is a post about it on the WoW site. Haven't played the game in years but I had to get an authenticator a while back as a mate of mine asked why I was back in WoW which is how I found out the 3 year dormant account was in use with my details etc.
Surely you can use these drivers and use a third-party app (like Riva Tuner) to manage the fan speed, I know I always keep mine on 100% regardless, it's quiet anyway!