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.

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Top Comments

14 Ð

maynardman10 , January 22, 2010 1:38 AM

Nvidia's reputation gets better by the day.
12 Ð

aletoil , January 22, 2010 1:50 AM

Damn fools. Its not a bug, its a feature.
10 Ð

Herr_Koos , January 22, 2010 1:41 AM

Good thing I read this... I won't be updating then since I use RivaTuner 24/7 to manage my GPU profiles.

Other Comments

14 Ð

maynardman10 , January 22, 2010 1:38 AM

Nvidia's reputation gets better by the day.
10 Ð

Herr_Koos , January 22, 2010 1:41 AM

Good thing I read this... I won't be updating then since I use RivaTuner 24/7 to manage my GPU profiles.
12 Ð

aletoil , January 22, 2010 1:50 AM

Damn fools. Its not a bug, its a feature.
3 Ð

d-block , January 22, 2010 2:01 AM

I'm glad they are at least acknowledging this. I already rolled back my drivers due to this. Hopefully a fix comes soon. Ati is becoming more and more tempting..
2 Ð

raybob95 , January 22, 2010 2:18 AM

I'm very happy an article like this came up and that NVIDIA will be fixing it, I upgraded to 196 a day ago and EVGA Precision quit, so I went back to 195.62
7 Ð

shadow187 , January 22, 2010 2:35 AM

Who's the major GPU company with bad drivers now? 8)
7 Ð

Honis , January 22, 2010 2:46 AM

These things happen but I swore off Nvidia after they cut off PhysX when using others graphics cards.
2 Ð

steiner666 , January 22, 2010 2:48 AM

glad i forgot to check for updated drivers this week... i'll just forget again until next week and hopefully this will be sorted out. Not a huge deal, everything i play is perfectly stable and performs great as is. Except crysis in 3d, and I doubt this driver version will really improve that for a single GPU.
-3 Ð

truehighroller , January 22, 2010 2:54 AM

Maybe I'm going out on a limb here.. I think this wasn't a mistake and something they will, be utilizing here soon to make people pay more money for a said card that can overclock. I'm willing to bet this is a way to make more money in the long run. I also believe that if this was implemented it would get cracked right away though I will add. Prepare to get locked down even more people.
3 Ð

anonymous@guest , January 22, 2010 3:00 AM

This driver also makes crysis wars stutter like crazy and introduces mouse lag into some old opengl games (like quake 3 for example), they must have made some kind of major change.
-8 Ð

SchizoFrog , January 22, 2010 3:10 AM

FAIL! @ all you people complaining. So there is nothing wrong with the actual drivers, only with compatibility with some overclocking tools? So what? At least they have taken note and will fix it, unlike ATi on the majority of issues WHEN they were bad. ATi are OK now but when they were bad and got their reputation they were absolutely awful and the errors were within the actual ATi drivers themselves. I always tend to stay one driver set behind just to see how they go, just for this sort of reason and its not like you can't get the last driver to roll back to. It seems that the GPU community especially is just overflowing with little girls who want to cry, cry, cry...
0 Ð

nforce4max , January 22, 2010 3:30 AM

I am glad that I am slow with driver updates.
4 Ð

Shadow703793 , January 22, 2010 4:15 AM

The question is HOW was this not found in the BETA version(195.81) of the drivers?????
2 Ð

Shadow703793 , January 22, 2010 4:18 AM

The question is HOW was this not found in the BETA version(195.81) of the drivers?????
(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?
1 Ð

claudeb , January 22, 2010 4:57 AM

I insstalled it yesterday and was like WTF afterburner isn't working. All it did when i went to apply is drop them to stock.

Afterburner by the way is sick. I use it with asus card because smartdoctor is crap
2 Ð

edilee , January 22, 2010 5:40 AM

LOL I installed these drivers last night and wondered why EVGA Precision was showing no shader clock value at all. Now it makes sense.
3 Ð

matt87_50 , January 22, 2010 8:10 AM

another day, another nvidia driver bug... it's pretty much come down to having to install a different driver for each game to get the best performance...

screw nvidia
2 Ð

alextheblue , January 22, 2010 9:33 AM

NaturalViolenceThis driver also makes crysis wars stutter like crazy and introduces mouse lag into some old opengl games (like quake 3 for example), they must have made some kind of major change.

matt87_50another day, another nvidia driver bug... it's pretty much come down to having to install a different driver for each game to get the best performance...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. Meanwhile, I haven't had any performance issues in Champions with my 4850, through numerous driver revisions. I guess in either case though, the newest driver isn't always the best one. I still like the results of the lastest WHQL Nvidia driver though, broken overclocking aside.
0 Ð

nebun , January 22, 2010 10:28 AM

good thing i did not update the drivers just yet, lol. no matter what everyones is saying about nvidia in my personal opinion they still are a very good company and their products are better than ati. i have had products from both companies and in the end i think nvidia drivers and setup is a lot more forgiving. every once in a while everyone is allowed to make a few mistakes, as long as they rush to fix them it's all good. take a look at MS, they have had issues with every new OS release yet they are still on top, and that's why they put out service packs. wait till fermi comes out. btw, overclocking a video card for a 5fps increase is not worth the trouble in my own opinion.
-2 Ð

KC8DKT , January 22, 2010 11:03 AM

people still use software overclocking? Just flash the bios and be done with it if you know your OC settings. One less TSR!

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