Nvidia Driver Bug Stops Overclocking; Fix Soon

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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.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
38 Comments Comment from the forums
  • maynardman10
    Nvidia's reputation gets better by the day.
    Reply
  • Herr_Koos
    Good thing I read this... I won't be updating then since I use RivaTuner 24/7 to manage my GPU profiles.
    Reply
  • aletoil
    Damn fools. Its not a bug, its a feature.
    Reply
  • d-block
    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..
    Reply
  • raybob95
    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
    Reply
  • shadow187
    Who's the major GPU company with bad drivers now? 8)
    Reply
  • Honis
    These things happen but I swore off Nvidia after they cut off PhysX when using others graphics cards.
    Reply
  • steiner666
    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.
    Reply
  • truehighroller
    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.
    Reply
  • 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.
    Reply