*ALERT* "nVidia 196.75 kills video cards"

By my understanding though it's a pretty small number of people with catastrophic failures... it's more the seriousness of the failures that is getting the reaction, no?

 

Perhaps, but the driver was only available for a short while and was pulled very early on (a good thing nvidia did). For the amount of time it was up the number of cases does seem rather large.

 

This is probably the reason why the Windows drivers are a few steps behind the drivers on the Nvidia website, its so they aren't liable for mistakes like this.

 

My 8800GTX has no option but to enjoy the icy cold airflow provided by the PSU-powered 120mm fan strapped onto the Thermalright HR-03

 

Not sure that contradicts anything I stated. The 196.75 drivers provided a reliable and compatible Win7 experience as long as the video card wasn't put under load, which is what put many cards in danger.

I'm assuming MS puts all video cards through a standard suite of DX compliance tests as well as making sure everything like WMP, IE, Office and other windows applications work as expected.

I somehow doubt they are going to be running furmark, OCCT, Crysis, etc. in testing for WHQL. That is more about how well the hardware handles things, and that's entirely up to the IHVs.

But I suppose we can agree to disagree here. I do agree that there have been some questionable drivers passed through in the past. But for 196.75 specifically, I don't see how MS could be partially to blame in any way.

Regards,
SB

 

I have these drivers and have been noticing that my gtx285 is hotter . Its idling at 47c atm while I type this but if I go into sleep mode and resume several minuts later, my temps go up to around 60ish.

 

Would be wise to roll back pronto Spyhawk.