Nvidia Driver Bug Stops Overclocking; Fix Soon
Your overclocking schedule will resume momentarily.
Nvidia earlier this week released the new GeForce/Ion drivers version 196.21, which added SLI and multi-GPU support for many new gaming titles as well as upgraded PhysX System Software to version 9.09.1112. But as with any new software, there's always the chance of a bug that'll cause some unintended results.
Enthusiasts who like to overclock quickly found that their once trusted overclocking software didn't work as it did in previous versions. Specifically, tweaking software RivaTuner V2.24C, EVGA Precision V1.9.0, and Galaxy MagicPanel HD all had problems in managing at least one of the core, shader, or memory clocks, according to Expreview.
Nvidia today confirmed with Tom's Hardware that the driver's behavior with overclocking tools is indeed a software bug and that an updated driver package is being worked on at the current time. Stay tuned.

(Damn the lack of an Edit button)
I'v been running 195.81 and RivaTuner, ATITool, Precision worked fine on those drivers on 8400GS / 8800GS / 9800GTX respectively. How in the world did nVidia manage to make the final release worse than Beta?
Afterburner by the way is sick. I use it with asus card because smartdoctor is crap
screw nvidia
Sad but true. Take this as an example: in Champions Online, the last nvidia driver release that did not suffer from constant stuttering (especially if you turn on AA and other pretties) was somewhere in the 190 series (190.62 I think). All the drivers after that stuttered in this game on most Nvidia systems, even overkill systems. This new WHQL driver release actually finally fixed this problem - I tested it on a friend's 9800 GT powered machine. Works beautifully.
But if what NaturalViolence said is true, they broke some other games.