Numerous gamers have reported that NVIDIA's latest WHQL-certified driver release - v196.75 - is causing GeForce graphics cards to overheat, and in some cases fail beyond repair.
The reports, many of which originate from NVIDIA's own support forums, have resulted in the GPU giant pulling its latest drivers from its website. In a statement, NVIDIA recommends users roll back to an older driver release whilst it attempts to solve the issue.
"We are aware that some customers have reported fan speed issues with the latest 196.75 WHQL drivers on NVIDIA.com," said the company in a statement.
"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."
According to reports, NVIDIA's 196.75 driver release isn't adjusting fan speeds as required when graphics cards are put under load during demanding activities such as 3D gaming. As a result, users are likely to experience extremely high GPU temperatures, with one gamer already witnessing temperatures of up to 104°C whilst playing StarCraft 2.
Game developer Blizzard has responded by recommending users with an NVIDIA graphics card revert back to older drivers.
"We're getting reports where users are getting intermittent low FPS after installing these drivers [196.75]. It seems that it is related to the fan control included in these drivers not working correctly and is causing the video card to overheat on 3D applications. This will affect Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Please uninstall the drivers and revert back to the older ones", said a Blizzard representative.
