Nvidia 320.18 WHQL Display Driver is Damaging GPUs

nV_Jason · 10 Jun 2013 at 23:11

Rroff said:
Of the problems I've read about 1/3rd of the people that believe 320.18 killed their GPU have been unable to get even a picture again (even at POST) to even try and install older drivers, others have managed to roll back fine.

EDIT: Does seem a lot of people are claiming these drivers have "killed" their GPUs as it goes to a black screen soon after booting into windows but when someones managed to persuade them to reinstall older drivers from safemode its all working fine again.

I had the same issue with the black screen when attempting to boot into Windows with these drivers.

My fix was to disable intel HD graphics chip (which shouldnt be active anyways?) through device manager in safe mode. After this I restarted and Windows booted straight up

Maybe this was my system only but it could help others with this issue.

ubersonic · 11 Jun 2013 at 08:20

Rroff said:
Does seem a lot of people are claiming these drivers have "killed" their GPUs as it goes to a black screen soon after booting into windows but when someones managed to persuade them to reinstall older drivers from safemode its all working fine again.

So, to sum up this fiasco: The is a driver out that causes stability issues with some cards (from what people say mostly non reference/factory overclocked ones) but this can be fixed be reverting to the old drivers?

d_brennen · 11 Jun 2013 at 08:51

Is this going to bring an end to the "superior drivers" delusion lots of people on forums seem to suffer from? Of course, I know the answer :rolleyes:

layte · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:02

d_brennen said:
Is this going to bring an end to the "superior drivers" delusion lots of people on forums seem to suffer from? Of course, I know the answer

If this is the beginning of a decade of sub par drivers then yes.

Or are we playing the cherry pick a single incident to support my argument game?

To be honest I don't see any difference in game compatibility between the two. If only AMD could bother to put some effort into making CCC actually work and feature match the NV control panel.

Diagro · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:08

layte said:
If this is the beginning of a decade of sub par drivers then yes.

Or are we playing the cherry pick a single incident to support my argument game?

This isn't the first time nvidia drivers have killed stuff

ubersonic · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:12

d_brennen said:
Is this going to bring an end to the "superior drivers" delusion lots of people on forums seem to suffer from? Of course, I know the answer

Depends if it blows over or not, this whole thing has been blow a million times out of proportion due to word of mouth and scare mongering (this thread itself is proof of this). Either people will forget the incident, or forget the incident and remember the hype.

LtMatt · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:17

There have been a fair few reports of gpu's dying from looking around various tech forums. Hopefully this thread has saved a few users from the problems that this dodgy driver causes. It might be scaremongering to you, but Nvidia users i know take this pretty seriously.

layte · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:24

Some of your best friends are Nvidia users.

Gregster · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:26

Another way to look at this...If you have a 4/5 series card that is still in warranty, I would make sure these were on my system... I believe they no longer make the 4 or 5 series

ubersonic · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:27

LtMatt said:
There have been a fair few reports of gpu's dying from looking around various tech forums. Hopefully this thread has saved a few users from the problems that this dodgy driver causes. It might be scaremongering to you, but Nvidia users i know take this pretty seriously.

Are the actually any confirmed reports though? as people have said above it seems that anyone who goes all "me cards dead eek" but actually bothers to properly revert drivers finds their dead card working fine, of course the are a few reports of old cards being proper brita'd but nothing that can't really be put down to coincidence.

It may sound like I'm trying to downplay the issue, but I'm not, releasing a driver that causes widespread issues is bad form (even if, as has been reported it may be due to modifications manufacturers made to their non reference cards) I'm just trying to not over hype it, as after all, it was the mountain/molehill sensationalism that gave AMD their reputation for bad drivers.

LtMatt · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:28

layte said:
Some of your best friends are Nvidia users.

The way its meant to be played.

He doesn't ever monitor his gpu temps so no idea if any long term damage is done.

LtMatt said:
My mate has just sent me a screenshot of him playing bf3 on his 670 using these drivers. Its pretty trippy i expect he'll post it shortly.

AMG · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:32

Oh **** my parents laptop has this driver installed :eek:

Its not going anyware near my GTX670, or my laptop.

LtMatt · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:39

ubersonic said:
Are the actually any confirmed reports though? as people have said above it seems that anyone who goes all "me cards dead eek" but actually bothers to properly revert drivers finds their dead card working fine, of course the are a few reports of old cards being proper brita'd but nothing that can't really be put down to coincidence.

It may sound like I'm trying to downplay the issue, but I'm not, releasing a driver that causes widespread issues is bad form (even if, as has been reported it may be due to modifications manufacturers made to their non reference cards) I'm just trying to not over hype it, as after all, it was the mountain/molehill sensationalism that gave AMD their reputation for bad drivers.

Plenty of reports. Official confirmed reports? I doubt you will ever get that proof you require. Too many people are suffering from a range of issues though to say this is being hyped up imo. In this instance scare mongering is probably a good thing if it saves some gpu's.

For sure some people can roll back to an older driver and their gpu works fine, but something is happening to some gpu's as there are just too many reports. I think if a gpu is on the edge, or near the edge these drivers will push it over that line. That's just speculation on my part though.

Without looking through the official nvidia driver thread so far ive seen people reporting dead cards with the following. Taken from oc.net, anand, guru3d etc.

8800gtx
460
480
560
6x0
780

Just had a quick look at the official nvidia thread (good work greg on posting the feedback there btw just seen your post) and found this on the last page. I'm not looking through the other 60 pages but i presume theres plenty more.

JohnnyQuid said:
I think I can confirm that these drivers will damage/degrade your card if you use or have used them. I used them, and the drivers have damaged either my Vram or VRM, or even cores, as I was experiencing Artifacting in BF3 on the 314.xx drivers and even performance hits, I dip down to 40fps in BF3 on my GTX 670 power edition sometimes. It's pathetic, Nvidia has either done this to make us buy new graphics cards, or they have some seriously corrupt drivers. I am RMAing my card tomorrow, and then I will never download Nvidia drivers again as long as they haven't been tested on the most demanding titles for at least 3 hours on every product they have released since 2010.

Source
https://forums.geforce.com/default/...hread-released-5-23-13-/post/3829091/#3829091

humbug · 11 Jun 2013 at 10:54

layte said:
If this is the beginning of a decade of sub par drivers then yes.

Or are we playing the cherry pick a single incident to support my argument game?

To be honest I don't see any difference in game compatibility between the two. If only AMD could bother to put some effort into making CCC actually work and feature match the NV control panel.

When was the last time you used CCC? No really... it works and it works very well.

And what features does NV control panel have that CCC or RP doesn't? I can tell you what RP has that NV control panel doesn't.

PS: I can pull up user complaints where installing 314 did not fix their broken or damaged GPU.

MOOGLEYS · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:02

Tbh this all sounds a bit overblown and people are jumping on the hate Nvidia bandwagon. Most stuff seems to be coming from non Nvidia users reporting problems they do not have or from other reports online. Until Nvidia advise otherwise I will use the drivers as they are what they recommend. If they kill my 780 then they can replace it.

Gregster · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:08

Originally Posted by JohnnyQuid
I think I can confirm that these drivers will damage/degrade your card if you use or have used them. I used them, and the drivers have damaged either my Vram or VRM, or even cores, as I was experiencing Artifacting in BF3 on the 314.xx drivers and even performance hits, I dip down to 40fps in BF3 on my GTX 670 power edition sometimes. It's pathetic, Nvidia has either done this to make us buy new graphics cards, or they have some seriously corrupt drivers. I am RMAing my card tomorrow, and then I will never download Nvidia drivers again as long as they haven't been tested on the most demanding titles for at least 3 hours on every product they have released since 2010.

He starts off with "I think I can confirm" Now that doesn't really make sense does it? I am not saying they are right or wrong but every case is similar to this with not one person supplying proof or even the slightest evidence to back it up.

All I am reading is AMD owners jumping on the bandwagon and frankly I expected nothing less from some of the users here.

Like I said on the last page. If you have a 4/5 series that is still in warranty, install these, as they no longer make the 4 or 5 series cards

MoRT489 · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:08

Moogleys not everyone has the comfort of being within warranty or wants to spend weeks without a gfx card.

spoffle · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:21

MOOGLEYS said:
Tbh this all sounds a bit overblown and people are jumping on the hate Nvidia bandwagon. Most stuff seems to be coming from non Nvidia users reporting problems they do not have or from other reports online. Until Nvidia advise otherwise I will use the drivers as they are what they recommend. If they kill my 780 then they can replace it.

This is the equivalent to bending over and accepting whatever happens.

It's not a good attitude to have.

It's bizarre, this is the third time nVidia have done this and so many people are herp derping about how it's all okay, nothing to see here, move along.

layte · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:23

humbug said:
When was the last time you used CCC? No really... it works and it works very well.

And what features does NV control panel have that CCC or RP doesn't? I can tell you what RP has that NV control panel doesn't.

PS: I can pull up user complaints where installing 314 did not fix their broken or damaged GPU.

Earlier this year when I had a pair of 7950.

Off the top of my head per title profiles never worked correctly and just try setting custom resolutions or refresh rates with CCC.

That's ignoring the fact AMD REALLY need to employ decent UXI expert to redesign the thing. It looks bad which gives a bad first impression to new owners used to NVs control panel. Like I keep saying it is silly things like that which keep letting them down. The drivers themselves are fine, and have been IMO since I owned a 4870x2 from launch.

MOOGLEYS · 11 Jun 2013 at 11:23

MoRT489 said:
Moogleys not everyone has the comfort of being within warranty or wants to spend weeks without a gfx card.

Agreed it just all seems a bit overblown and exaggerated. If not in warranty I would roll back the drivers just to be safe.

However much Nvidia screw over us customers I cannot see them deliberately releasing a driver that kills cards like has been claimed.

It seems there have been a few issues that have been exaggerated and now everyone is all of a sudden having issues ?

I'm just not convinced there is a big an issue as that has materialised over the last couple of days.