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
On one hand I'm glad I know what fried my card, on the other....well nvidia owes me a new card.
I have an affected card / driver and I can tell you now that in my experience the automated fan control has never worked and I've seen the problem over quite a few forums for a long time. Best thing to do it set the fan speed to 60% upwards depending on the strain.
@DiGiC
Right on the money! I have never trusted any manufacturer's fan speed controls. Always override. NE1 who plays with high end equipment like this should know better. The 196.75 work great and I am using EVGA's Precision to lock fan speeds on my GTX 295. Default fan speeds, IMHO, were always too low anyway. 61% works for my config. Nice balance between noise and temp.
@LiqMat
Yeah same here, then upto 80-100% for heavy games like GTA IV or L4D (GTX 260 core 192)
Mmmmmm...toasty
Well I'm glad Engadget told me about this. At the very least Nvidia could update their site letting people who've installed the latest driver know about this problem. I wonder how many people are going to fry their video card because of Nvidia's ineptness.
I had the same problem with this driver while playing mass effect 2... It occasionally crashed my computer, so I downloaded EVGA precision to find out my GPU temperature was exceeding 100C degrees. Quite disappointed in Nvidia's drivers. Even while using EVGA to manually control the fan speed, it would reset itself shortly after me changing it. I finally took out my card, bought some new thermal grease and cleaned out my heat sync to allow max heat transfer. This has fixed the problem so far, but I'm keeping an eye on it. I doubt my overheating was due to dust buildup, for I have been using the card for less than a year.
good thing i liquid cool my gtx 275... no fan profiles for me!
My EVGA 280 GTX died a sudden, hard death last week and I was wondering what the hell was going on with it! Damn it nvidia. Since I didn't register the card within 30 days so my lifetime warranty was null and void (pissed off about this) so I went out and bought a new ATI 5870.
After reading this I'm glad I switched. I'm going to submit a support ticket to EVGA to see what they have to say on the matter.
i installed it and all the colors went really vivid and bright like ur squinting ur eye's
GT200 users should already be using something like EVGA Preccision and cranking their cardss to 100% fan speed, anyway :p
Hot slag...all over the inside of my case? Ewww...
A co-worker was talking about the estimated 30% speed bump in Left 4 Dead... I guess it leaves your computer for dead, too.
@Dale P
30% increase in frames rendered
100% decrease in fan speed
Fuck, on Tuesday I updated my drivers and started to play Bad Company 2 and bam my computer shuts down, I smell burning, my 9800gt is fried. nVidia better do something about this shit.
@tokyopimp
They did do something- They should've convinced you to go ATI after this.
I love mine, this after using Nvidia for a decade (I only used 3dfx throughout the 90's).
Oh dear, nVidia...
Is that a real photo or a 'shop? :P
@FORDY It's legit. The secret compartment of thermite ignites.
I think it's weird that this driver also slowed down my flash considerably. I should hope Nvidia replaces any cards lost to this. It did have all the certifications.
crap! I updated the driver and played bas company 2 all night im gonna go roll back right now!
Thanks for the update guys i had installed this update and did have some strange things ,sudden reboots and very bad freeze ingame once ,with a otherwise very very stable pc,i have rolled back since ,thanks for the headsup again ;)
Good thing I only use my 9800GT for Physx.
WOW! So my fanless ASUS 9600GT Silent proves its usefulness once again :D
I have never been so glad to have not used my desktop in nearly 3 months, using my laptop with an ATi card, thank god.
(not bashing either manufacturer, this kind of stuff happens, and I'm usually an early adopter of new drivers, so this saves me from losing two low quality cards, XD)
they emailed 2 days after releasing the driver:
196.75 GeForce Alert!
We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.co.uk. Until we can verify the root cause for this issue, we recommend that customers stay with, or return to 196.21 WHQL drivers. The 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our website
I don't know what you're talking about that they are not warning people.
my card has just fried aswell, im not sure if thats the driver i had but its more then likely. and the worst part i registered it abd I didnt even get an email from XFX telling me if there's a potential driver issue and to roll back to whatever.