Nvidia 320.18 WHQL Display Driver is Damaging GPUs

[LtMatt]

I think this driver has seriously broke something in my pc when I start just before windows I get a red flash then severe graphical corruption then screen goes blank what would happen about an rma ?? As this is nvidia fault ??

You will definitely be covered for an RMA don't worry. Its not your fault. (assuming you have warranty)

 

[On Holiday]

Does warranty cover cards that get bricked as a result of the drivers?

If warranty has expired, are Nvidia repairing/replacing free?

 

[LtMatt]

If warranty has expired, are Nvidia repairing/replacing free?

I can't see them doing that.

 

[Jay85]

I didn't follow any of those steps!

Just went into device manager, clicked on display adapter and clicked on my gpu and went to the drivers tab. Clicked on rollback and now im back on my previous 310 drivers which were working beautifully for me.

I thought I had bricked my card the other day when bioshock started to artifact like mental. Temps were normal and my cpu overclock seemed fine. Hope its done no damage...

 

[Gregster]

AMD now have a focus group

 

[MOOGLEYS]

I have been using these drivers and playing BF3 without issue on my 780. All other games seem ok as well and GPU temps are all good.

Is it affecting all cards ?

The workaround is a bit OTT. If you download the previous driver version and tick the clean install tab when installing I'm pretty sure it does most of that for you.

 

[Rroff]

because if your card gets bricked you have to buy a new one

they did this intentionally before with the 7900/8800/9800 to make ppl upgrade

it's why bfg died

The last 2 times nVidia pulled the drivers almost immediately after it was confirmed it was killing cards.

BFG died due to a combination of people abusing the **** out of their warranty and that there was something wrong somewhere that was exacerbating the BGA solder problem that affected late 9000 and 200 series cards.

 

[tommybhoy]

are Nvidia repairing/replacing free?

Don't hotlink images - Rilot

Don't know what happened there, it was a filebeam hosted pic, but here's a fixed one:

 

[Mr. May]

You will definitely be covered for an RMA don't worry. Its not your fault. (assuming you have warranty)

Yer but how do I turn round to evga in Germany and say all three of my 670's failed at once ??

 

[LtMatt]

I didn't follow any of those steps!

Just went into device manager, clicked on display adapter and clicked on my gpu and went to the drivers tab. Clicked on rollback and now im back on my previous 310 drivers which were working beautifully for me.

I thought I had bricked my card the other day when bioshock started to artifact like mental. Temps were normal and my cpu overclock seemed fine. Hope its done no damage...

It should be fine but the driver remains will be left in your system/registry. The version of driver sweeper included in the OP is the basic version so will leave lots of files behind.

If anyone wants to use a Driver Fusion version that will get rid of every nvidia file on your system then i included one in my AMD thread that people can use. (step 2)

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18431335

AMD now have a focus group

Sorry to be the one to post it, what with me being an AMD fan boy and all.
Hopefully this will help some people though.


Bad Tommy.

Yer but how do I turn round to evga in Germany and say all three of my 670's failed at once ??

Link them to this thread. I'd be amazed if they refused you an rma over a bad driver which is definitely not your fault.

 

[On Holiday]

Hahaha yeah I did think that tbf!

From consumer point of view, they broke it, they fix it!

From their point of view I expect it's a long process to test and even then they couldn't be sure the card wasn't damaged by somebody attempting to flash bios/overclock etc.

 

[pgi947]

I can't see them doing that.

Nope, doing so would in its self be quite risky, they may find users with dead, out of warranty cards using this as an excuse for a free replacement.

Especially as from what I can tell, there aren't any tell-tale signs from a card dying as a result of this driver. Unlike the 7950 issues MSI had (both TIM and diode issues) that could be easily identified and swapped out with minimal fuss.

I wonder how many different setups both AMD and Nvidia use to test drivers and to what extent? It strikes me as something that should be caught in early testing, but then again we don't know the full extent of the damage done.

Have Nvidia released a statement on this and pulled the drivers?

 

[Gregster]

Why hasn't the driver been pulled and why isn't there hundreds of reports? Why are other people using the same GPU's that died (480 + 570)?

All I am reading here is scaremongering. Sure the drivers are rubbish but seriously???

 

[Jay85]

I will test them later when I have a bash on bioshock again. Hopefully it will have fixed the issue.

I notice that when playing bioshock, all my temps are up including my gpu ones which normally sit around 40c but in bioshock they ramp up to 51+ and my cpu can hit a staggering 89c!!! This was on a low fan profile though on my radiators so maybe it was caused by bad temps, who knows!

 

[humbug]

I have been using these drivers and playing BF3 without issue on my 780. All other games seem ok as well and GPU temps are all good.

Is it affecting all cards ?

The workaround is a bit OTT. If you download the previous driver version and tick the clean install tab when installing I'm pretty sure it does most of that for you.

There are a couple in the GeForce forum claiming this driver damaged their GTX 780, artefacts where previously there was none, ecte...

 

[pgi947]

Why hasn't the driver been pulled and why isn't there hundreds of reports? Why are other people using the same GPU's that died (480 + 570)?

All I am reading here is scaremongering. Sure the drivers are rubbish but seriously???

Its a classic case of users only reporting when something go's wrong, as, with everything, users are more inclined to post up about negative rather then positive findings, for all we know those with 'dead' cards may only be ~0.5% of the customer base that installed 320.18.

 

[Gregster]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18517976

It is the same as this guy going onto an AMD forum and claiming that AMD drivers killed his GPU...

Or this guy saying it was the latest drivers that killed his GPU...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18518587

The joke of this thread is it took an AMD owner to go onto the Nvidia forums to search for problems. Why would you do this and don't come with that massive "I am only trying to help" crap.

Jokers....

 

[tommybhoy]

Don't hotlink images - Rilot

@Rilot,

I never hotlinked, I uploaded it on Filebeam:

(filebeam.com/70fdf8b77189a63da3da4a2d59300340.jpg)

 

[LtMatt]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18517976

It is the same as this guy going onto an AMD forum and claiming that AMD drivers killed his GPU...

Or this guy saying it was the latest drivers that killed his GPU...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18518587

The joke of this thread is it took an AMD owner to go onto the Nvidia forums to search for problems. Why would you do this and don't come with that massive "I am only trying to help" crap.

Jokers....

I saw the article linked and being discussed on overclock.net Greg so i posted it here to let people know and discuss it.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1399104/mc-nvidia-320-18-whql-display-driver-is-damaging-gpus

I only visited the Nvidia forum afterwards to see what people were saying.

 

[MOOGLEYS]

There are a couple in the GeForce forum claiming this driver damaged their GTX 780, artefacts where previously there was none, ecte...

I have been gaming quite a bit this weekend and not noticed anything unusual in any games I have been using these drivers since release.

My card is at stock so maybe these issues are on clocked cards being pushed too hard ?

Does seem a bit weird tbh and a little bit suspect but you never know.