NVIDIA 196.75 kills video cards

Dare I say it?

At least ATI drivers don't kill cards!  


Sucks for all those people. But hey, this is the kind of thing ATI needs.

nVidia's graphic cards are sympathizing with the company's current situation and are commiting harakiri.

I uninstalled it because BFBC2 was crashing after i installed it. Not from overheating though, my 8800GTS 512 was actually running normal temps, AND is overclocked a lot. Reverted back, crashes went away, and my card still lives.

Perhaps i was lucky? Or it could be that too many people forget to clean the dust out of their card, then a updated driver comes along that allows games to utilize it more and then it overheats.

My 9500GT and 8800GT's are running fine on the 196.75 drivers so I'm calling BS on that.

Unless Lucuis is right. Not everyone is careful about dusting.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/3/4/nvidia-re...

That makes sense then, if their fans weren't working right that could easily cause them to overheat. Luckily for me i use EVGA Precision to handle that stuff for me.

And AMD/ATi blamed the GSOD issue on user error and Windows updates rather than just admitting that they have screwed up, so what's your point? Like I said before I'm using these drivers and they are working fine so there is no problem.

Why am I not surprised.  

So you as a moderator of toms, are suggesting that people ignore nVidia's advice and continue to use these drivers?

Probably because you believe the AMD/ATi BS spouted about the AA issue in the Batman game.

Well if you play BFBC2 i wouldn't recommend it. For me it caused the game to crash to desktop without warning.

Also despite the fact this seems total BS, why would you risk it anyway? There's no real benefit to using 168.75, at least none that i noticed.

People are free to take any advice they wish, I am not having any problems with these drivers and shall continue to use them.

Mousemonkey, if nVidia says that there is an issue, its a good bet that you might want to listen.

I find it very odd that you are calling others biased for listening to nVidia, who say there is a problem and have taken it off their website.

This isn't a nVidia vs ATI debate, and you shouldn't be making it into one.

Like all problems it wont effect everyone.

As for the drivers, I myself am still running 195.62 and, as usual, I'll likely stick with that until I need to upgrade, nVidia has been releasing drivers like crazy it seems.

After installing an otherwise long working 9800GT with ver. 196.75 a couple of nights ago, I noticed GPUZ was reporting the graphics driver temp of over 70C. EVGA Precision showed the fan speed at 30 percent or so on auto (not sure if 30% was accurate grayed out). Set the fan speed to 80+ percent manual (never used manual fan speed prior) and watched the temp drop into the mid 50's. The 9800GT had been running for about a year heavily used with no heat problem. Maybe be wise to check the temps on the 9800GTs using the driver.

I'm just taking the same blinkered view that others can take when a driver or hardware issue does not affect them, what's so wrong with that? There have been many times that drivers have been pulled from the download page for a variety of reasons just like there have been many people who have had issues with various drivers that are not shared by everyone and considering the stick I've been taking lately for highlighting the GSOD issue I'll stick with my "I'm not having any problems so what's the problem?". If people are having problems or don't wish to install these or any other drivers then that's up to them but just as other moderators aren't jumping up and down over the GSOD/vertical line issue I'm not going to jump up and down over this.

My 8800's are fitted with Zalmen VF900's that are plugged into the motherboard so if it's the fan controller side of the driver that's shafted I wouldn't notice because my fans are going flat out all the time, on the 9500GT though the temps have remained the same whether it's idling or folding and that does have a driver controlled fan on it.

I have been using the 9800GT the past couple of days. Other than noticing the high GPU temp reported by the driver, I have had no issue with the 196.75 ver. I installed my Radeon 4850 x 2 setup for my son in his gaming machine. He has some new games and is happy about it. I'll put a 5770 in here tomorrow. I read the reviews and I want to have a cheap 5 series card for now. I expect to get the chicks.  

My Camry doesn't have any accelerator issues. I call BS on that.
My Xbox hasn't had RRoD. I call BS on that.
My phat PS3 had no problems on March 1st. I call BS on that.

Really, anecdotal evidence is useless, and can only degrade the credibility of the person trying to pass it off as some sort of proof.

If you're out to impress the chicks then you need one of these, after all size is important.  

I wasn't trying to prove anything, other than letting the troll poster have their five minutes on the soap box but now I've had enough.