Nvidia 196.75 Driver Warning

196.75 drivers can cause severe cooling problems, possibly resulting hardware damage

EDIT: the driver have since been updated and this warning really no longer applies.

The latest Nvidia drivers may have a serious flaw that can reduce performance, possibly cause the card´s fan to stop, and may even lead to hardware damage. The reports are so serious Nvidia has removed them from their web site pending further investigation.

It is very frustrating when, in a valiant attempt to remain cutting edge and hopefully keep your system as ´updated´ as possible to hear that it´s the update itself that may be a problem. In this particular case several tech news outlets are reporting many users indicating issues with these drivers.

The drivers have only been available for a short time so if you haven´t updated your graphics drivers recently you´re probably not at risk - but better safe then sorry. Visit your Nvidia control panel and check the System Information under the help menu to see which drivers you are running. If you have 196.75 then the recommended action is to un-install these and revert back to version 196.21 (thankfully this is what I happened to be running already)

The 196.75 version has been removed from Nvidia´s web site and they have issued the following statement:
"We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com. Until we can verify and root cause this issue, we recommend that customers stay with, or return to 196.21 WHQL drivers. Release 196.75 drivers have been temporarily removed from our Web site in the meantime."

Hopefully this warning will help prevent any damage to systems out there.

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