One of the discussions that arise anytime we bring up a new graphics card from
ATI or
NVIDIA is about which company has the better drivers. Well, this should help sway the argument a little bit. It would seem
StarCraft II Beta players were among the first to notice low frame rates while using the latest drivers from NVIDIA, and further digging has uncovered that the automated fan-controlling part of said firmware was failing to act as intended. The result? Overheated chips, diminished performance, and in some extreme cases, death (of the GPU, we
think the users will be okay). The totality of it is that you should avoid the 196.75 iteration like the plague, and NVIDIA has temporarily yanked the update while investigating the reported issues. Shame that the company hasn't got any warnings up on its site to tell those who've installed the update but haven't yet nuked their graphics card to roll back their drivers, but that's what you've got us for, right?
[Thanks, Shockie]
Update: Credit where it's due -- NVIDIA has dutifully put up
an alert on its site advising users to roll back to the 196.21 driver while it investigates the root cause of the reported fan problems.
posted March 5th 2010 4:34AM
Yikes. Thats scary. So there isn't/wasn't a sort of fail-safe where if the chip got so hot, the computer shuts down? Hope nVidia gets the code fixed and everybody downloads it
@Goaliegeek
You ain't kidding... I'm running this driver right now! Afk.
@Goaliegeek
Shame on people for using NVIDIA! Get ATI. Radeons are so much better than their comparable GTXs.
@shadowj0 After having two ATI cards literally catch fire, I'll not be following that advice.
Torch me once, I can chalk it up to an anomaly. Torch me twice and I can chalk it up to never using your company's shit products again.
@Christian Martin
Strange, the 5000 series runs much cooler than the GT200 series...
@Goaliegeek Does anyone else wonder what the ratio of time photoshopping to writing the articles is?
@Goaliegeek : That's why i use core temp 64 in my task bar (and GPU water cooling)
@Goaliegeek nVidia's drivers aren't known as Detonators for nothing!
(ok yes I know they don't call them that anymore)
@Christian Martin
That's unfortunate. The first time shoulda told you to stop playing Crysis.
@Christian Martin
i'm seriously wondering how you achieved that. i messed up an aftermarket heatsink install on my ATI card, and it shut itself down. twice, because i didn't notice it was mis-installed when i pulled it out the first time.
Ouch! That's horrible, especially if you leave your computer on when you're not home, that could set a fire. Very unlikely, but still a possibility.
They should get on that, pronto!
@mtnDewFTW - Yes indeed. Thats why it is always a great idea to put your pc in sleep mode or turn it off if you are not using it.
I always try to monitor my GPU temps when doing encoding or gaming.
That sux for those whose cards are now roasted. Wish Nvidia would help out those in that situation. They are so adamant about you updating your drivers all the time. At least they pulled it.
@pickleJar lol I don't get why you wouldn't put your computer to sleep when you're not at your desk. My iMac is literally only awake when I'm in front of it. What's the point of having it running if I'm not doing anything?
Well.. sucks for them I guess. They'll learn after this one ;)
@mtnDewFTW Indeed.. And worst is that they didnt even let people know in their website...
This is totally outrageous and I wonder why people are not making more fuzz about this.
@mtnDewFTW - Let me clarify. I meant to say for long periods of time. Like if you go out, or go to bed... anytime that you are not there for a long time.
I had a friend whose power supply fritzed out and burned a good portion of his apartment. He usually left his pc on 24/7.
I got 2 GTX 260's and 5 HDD's going... my power bill thanks me for putting my pc to sleep once in awhile.
@mtnDewFTW
Some of us actually use our computer for things for more than web surfing ;)
I personally either let code compile or re-encode videos overnight pretty often (I'm currently digitizing all of our family's home movies).
@mtnDewFTW
Putting a machine to sleep and waking it back up a lot can actually shorten the life of your hardware. That's particularly true of the hard drive, which is why I always disable hard drive sleep since most OSes set it at something low like 20 minutes. Most components (hard drives in particular) are worn out by changes in motion and temperature, not continued operation under constant conditions. Have you ever noticed how light bulbs almost always blow out when you turn them on or off? Same concept.
@mtnDewFTW running folding@home ftw
nvidia must construct additional pylons!
@notbuttershift1
You've not enough minerals !!
Actually, Thanks for telling us. I might have that driver on my desktop.
Seriously, thanks...!
the temperature in korea just spiked... kekeke
Don't think things could get any worse for nVidia right now.
Must be a joke. My computer has been running fi
@Torch Red
It's amazing how the short circuit caused by the melting GPU shorted the correct lines in the USB controller which your keyboard is plugged into to produce the mask value 0x13 for the Enter key.
It seems to me that people these days rely too much on software. The graphics card could have simple electrical override that would blow the fan at max when a threshold temperature is exceeded. Plus, it could have a buzzer to acoustically warn the user that something is going wring.
@stoffer lol @ unintentional humor.
It's called the 196.75 driver because it makes your card run at 196.75º
Man, nVidia is going down the tubes. They haven't done a single thing right in the last 2 years...
@Yankee uhh... Tegra, and if you overlook the downfalls with the 400 series they are really nice chips.
@Templarian and Optimus :)
I use Linux. We don't get the latest nVidia graphics drivers every time there's an update, 'cause:
1. They're usually untested;
2. They're a bitch to package.
@The Madman, yes, and given all, they are still a bliss compared to the ATI route... In the Linux arena, nVidia runs circles around ATI.
@incognito I've been using a netbook with Intel integrated graphics, which have open-source drivers available. I'm not exactly religious, but if the features I've found with these drivers (fast user switching, reliable/instant suspend/resume) are because they're open source, then I still want open source nVidia drivers...
For what it's worth, I'm fold on a GTX 285 pretty much non-stop.
That said, it never breaks 70C, and the fan normally doesn't spin up over 40%, and it's behaving no differently now after that update.
I wonder if it affects all cards or a specific family. Either way, lets hope it all gets sorted out (and I don't get cooked!)
I have been having this exact problem with my nvidia 9800 GTX card since I installed windows 7, have tried multiple releases of win 7x64 drivers, and the automatic fan speed never works. I have to manually set the fan speed or else it over heats
@froggythemad my 9800 Gt is working fine
@froggythemad
Same here. I have an Asus G50v and since I installed Win 7 and new drivers I have had the same issues. I have tried all sorts of different ways to get around it and have managed to get it under control, but I figured this out a while back and reported it to nVidia (for what that was worth). I finally got to the point where I can run WoW w/o Anti-Aliasing and do fine with it, but if I run any other advanced graphics the fan just doesn't compensate for the heat. Hopefully a new driver release will correct this issue soon.
@froggythemad
You can program different fan profiles into that card's ROM. If it's a spec board, you can burn any manufacturer's ROM to your card (e.g. EVGA). There are also some nice utilities that will let you modify a ROM for a custom solution.
That's how I OC my GPU. I don't rely on drivers.
I have one of the original 8800GT, whose tiny fan presented cooling issues.
@froggythemad
If you can't use stock fan controls there is always Rivatuner ( http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner ) it's kind of a bitch to program but once you do it runs great
@froggythemad I might have to check into this, I've had a few sporadic lockups when the machine is idle. If the card overheated due to the fan not moving any air because its off that could be the cause.
@froggythemad back when win7 was still in RC, I update my nVidia drivers using the official win7 drivers. Shortly after while gaming the screen froze and the next thing I knew I couldn't boot the PC anymore. I had to replace it. Come to think of it, if the automatic fans had problems then it could explain the overheating and cooking.
I had this driver. As soon as I read the title i reinstalled the driver from my video card's website. They haven't updated the driver since September but at least I don't know of any glitches with 191.07
Maybe this wouldn't happen if the video cards don't require its own power plant and run like an oven. Really, the power requirement of today's GPUs are just ridiculous.
I got this MSI afterburner software that watches my GPU temperatures. I have it set to idle at 30% fan speed when the GPU's at 0 to 40 degrees, and then it gets linearly ramped up to 100% fan speed at 80 degrees.
My onboard GPU (8600M Gs) was roasted 10 days after the guarantee finished. Now ASUS wants 400$+tax to change the main board :(((
Wow, this means nVIDIA does not have automatic overheat protection like CPUs have, will they get it now, If I have an nVIDIA card I will wait at least 30 days before applying any new drive release after this fiasco!
Run 186.xx like me!
this happened to me! my GPUs got FUCKED after the nvidia update & now I got two seemingly friend GPUs. AH! What should I do???
@bvandenbroeck Sue them!
... or call support to get them replaced on NVIDIAs cost