

Nvidia 196.75 drivers causing graphics cards to die - ukdm
http://www.geek.com/articles/games/nvidia-196-75-drivers-causing-graphics-cards-to-die-2010035/

======
ciupicri
Ok, the driver was buggy, but why don't these cards have some kind of
protection against overheating? If the temperature is too high they could
downclock or even shutdown.

------
dirtbox
Exactly this has happened to me early this week with a 9800GTX+ (for some
reason the drivers identify it as a 250GTS) except I was lucky enough to catch
it before the GPU itself became damaged. I thought it was merely a broken fan,
so went about ripping apart a case fan and McGyvering it onto the card.

However I haven't played any of those games, or really done anything terribly
intensive aside from Zbrush and Maya, so I'm uncertain if it's related or
merely a coincidence. Although, to be fair, I've never had a fan of any
description die.

Does anyone know of some way to check or ultimately claim for this?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
> 9800GTX+ (for some reason the drivers identify it as a 250GTS)

It's because it's the exact same card. On most rebrands, at least they bother
to change the relevant identifiers, but 9800GTX+ differs from a GTS250 only by
the number on the box. As such, the drivers have no way of knowing which of
them you have -- they cannot even make a solid guess from batch numbers
because unsold 9800GTX+ were repackaged as GTS250's. Faced with this, the
driver programmers decided that less people would probably complain if they
just called all the cards by the latter name.

Fun fact -- differently harvested versions of the G92 chip have been sold as:

    
    
         - GeForce 8800 GT   $2
         - GeForce 8800 GS   $1
         - GeForce 8800 GTS
         - GeForce 9600 GSO  $1
         - GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 $$
         - GeForce 9800 GT   $2
         - GeForce 9800 GTX
         - GeForce 9800 GTX+ $3
         - GeForce 9800 GX2
         - GeForce GTS 150
         - GeForce GTS 240
         - GeForce GTS 250   $3
         - GeForce GT 330
    

Groups marked with $n are all _exactly_ the same card, with no differences
whatsoever. Many other sets have only very minor differences. $$ denotes the
biggest ripoff award -- halved memory bus width and cheap memory make this
card only half the speed of the normal 9600 GSO.

So, if you wonder why NVidia is swimming in cash, it's because G80, and it's
slightly modified shrink G92, are insanely good designs. G80 debuted in late
2006 and G92 in late 2007, and it's still selling.

~~~
zyb09
Well I can't complain, I bought a 8800 GTX (G80) 2,5 years ago and still play
all new games on high settings and 1920x1080 resolution. No other piece of
hardware I ever bought had such longevity - this chip is pure gold.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
True. If the guy who led the G80 project isn't worth a 100M, NVidia is not
paying him properly.

------
binarymax
Thank you! I literally JUST BOUGHT a machine with no O/S and a GTS250 and was
about to install the O/S along with those drivers that I had already
downloaded. What are the chances I saw this article just in time?

~~~
meroliph
How exactly did you download them? Nvidia removed them from their website, and
you should only download drivers from there.

~~~
binarymax
I had ordered a bespoke desktop. It took a little while to procure, build,
test and ship, so in the meantime I got everything ready in anticipation :)

------
nitrogen
It's not the first time something like this has happened. My brother got a
9800GX2 from EVGA, and due to inadequate fan settings programmed into the
card's BIOS it overheated and destroyed the thermal interface between the GPU
and heatsink (though the GPU didn't seem to be damaged -- the computer would
boot and run for about 2 minutes from a cold start). After getting a
replacement, he uses Rivatuner to force the fan to 100% when doing anything
3D. He still gets occasional frame rate drops on one of the two GPUs, though
it claims its temperature is fine.

------
gte910h
Wow thanks, just upgraded to those. Now downgraded back to _21

