[USE AT YOUR OWN RISK, WIDESPREAD BRICKS!] nVIDIA GeForce Drivers v364.72 Findings & Fixes

Polaris 11 ellesmere (?), which the 480 will use, has a tdp of 100W or 110W! So the mobile AMD cards should be powerful this year, for a change.

So, may have to roll back...

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Anyone else has been left with a bricked GPU or system after this update?
I know I have but I see many people being able to (thankfully) roll back.
I wonder what combination of hardware/software made my system crap itself with this driver.

 

See that's the "I don't use" option.

I'm not taking that option. Realistically, buying nothing and doing without doesn't hurt anybody but me.

You want different things from gaming than I do, maybe? If the single strongest GPU isn't enough, you get another. I don't think the single strongest GPU is enough. It's not that grunt-wise it isn't enough, but rather that games are so unoptimized you can drop below 60fps on a 980Ti at 1080p in some titles. Easily. I would rather have my minimum fps be 144, for example.

 

"I am so angry about it that I made a post about it, but I am buying it anyway"

This statement describes the option that most people choose.

 

My friend's MSI Barebone with core i7 3610QM and GTX 680m had their GPU die after updating. We tried as much as possible but the GPU failed to work even after rolling back. It kept crashing and sometimes windows wouldn't recognize it. It all happened as soon as he updated to play the division with the latest drivers heh.

He upgraded to a 970m and he is running fine, albet with drivers 362.00.

In my case, I have been using 364.72 for some time now without issues, thankfully. No GPUs have died, no crashes so far, and I can play Dark Souls 3 with SLI. But seeing the gamble that involves updating the drivers, I would advise other users to not upgrade at all. I took a risk.

 

No likes from me!

 

I can only give you 3DMark11 Demo run for 870M + i7 4702HQ. It's been forever since I've bothered to run any benchmarks..

364.72 Win10 P6714 (Today)
332.78 Win8.1 P6707 (May 2014)

 

running two 780M SLI machines with 364.72, one update went fine, the other gave weird code 43 error that resolved after vBIOS reflash and DDU + reinstall of 364.72

 

More hilarious comments from the nVIDIA forums

 

Degrade the performance with drivers on older cards = nGreedia's signal that you should upgrade aka new cards on the way

 

this guy is speaking the truth. I just ran a 3dmark11 assessment on my M18x R1 in my sig, with CPU clocked at 4.42 Ghz x4
I barely got 12700....the 780M at time of testing in the Alienware 18 got 14000. 4930MX was not clocked anywhere near my 2920XM, and still scored higher. on drivers that are 3 years older than todays. That's entirely unacceptable and quite atrocious. nVidia IS GIMPING KEPLER. Shame on you nVidia

 

There's some hotfix driver 394.96 here. I doesn't mention anything of a "fix", rather shoehorning in a Doom Alpha profile. Not worth a new thread either. I'd say proceed with the same caution.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/nvidia-geforce-hot-fix-driver-v364-96-findings-fixes.790555/

 

I used to get 17k graphics score on 344.75, but this went down by a bit with newer drivers, but in-game performance improved.

On the older drivers I got about 500-1000 more points in Firestrike. As for 3dMark11, the graphics score was generally in the 17000 range, running the modified vBIOS that prevents throttling, with the cards running at stock clocks of 993 MHz. Overclocking the core to 1033 MHz would push the graphics score into the 18000 range. I'll consider doing another run over the weekend with the newer drivers on the token that I still have a running warranty. Presently, the system is on the 361.91 GeForce driver, and I get around the same 3dMark11 scores.

@Mr. Fox has done some solid running commentary on this issue, and has noticed that much like the 880M, the 780M has also been throttling with the recent-most drivers. Of course, with the old custom vBIOS, courtesy of SLV and @johnksss, the 880M maintains clocks with the newer drivers. Something that I have noticed, however, is that with the newer drivers, the general and GPU score for Firestrike has dropped substantially, but this doesn't translate to negative performance in actual games, in my experience, as some things have actually improved.

 

I believe this goes along with their previous "stance" against overclocking and the retracted stance that was then re-retracted through other means. Reading between the lines of their statements and driver releases, it seems obvious they don't want anyone OC'ing or doing anything that pushes these cards to their limits. I'm not a bencher but benching does that am I right? If so, that could explain the lower benchmark scores while still some improvement in stock gaming which they deem "safe" use.

This could keep the average gamer satisfied while pushing the extreme folks to continually spend top dollar on the newest cards as they constantly chase higher scores. This is in addition to the crippling old cards we all know they do to some extent. It's a 2 pronged approach to force the 2 types of customers they have to upgrade. The benchers and the gamers. Got to hand it to them, they've covers their bases.

I actually wonder how the newer driver releases would look if they were simply judged by fps and graphical performance while gaming in a "stock" setting. Assuming the computer will even boot of course

 

LOL, all these issues and Nvidia's response:

 

I'm seriously thinking about selling my gtx 980m and getting a AMD card when polaris becomes available.
From what I gathered it looks promising.
And the last card I owned from AMD was a saphire 4870x2, what a beast it was. When 60fps in Crysis was something to brag about

 

I agree 100%. They're dishonest shysters and I believe this is exactly what they are doing. I trust the NVIDIOTS about as far as I can throw them with both arms tied behind my back. If they were good people this problem either never would have surfaced, or it would have been fixed right away. It started a year ago. They don't care about their customers that own last gen products. Let me correct that... They don't care about a nyone.

 

Maybe that's exactly when principles based on your words take action, no? It's when you start change your preferences and even needs, maybe?

It's just gaming afterall, if it would be needed for your job then it's different but gaming... If you can't lower preferences for having fun of gaming on 1 AMD GPU instead of SLI of nvidia which you "disrespect/hate/dislike" then maybe you do not disrespect/hate/dislike it so much as you say?

 

Interesting point, but this doesn't necessarily mean that the person is in denial of their feelings on the matter, and certainly not in the context of an epistemic philosophical analysis. There is no logical or factual basis to support the claim/idea that when one is dependent on X, they cannot ever hate or dislike X as much as they claim (due to conditions of said dependence and potential expectations, expectations that are logically reinforced by said dependence). It certainly creates a superficial inconsistency (this person uses X, but constantly berates X), but it does happen, such is the nature of life and the complex matrix of human behaviour and choices, because it requires a certain level of involvement with something for one to have strong views -- negative or positive -- on that something.

As for principles based on words manifesting into actions. Yes, this is where one is looking at how much a person's pragmatism (subject to needs/based on subjectivity of needs) weighs out against their ideals. Sometimes, regardless of passionate ideals, practical needs take greater priority.

 

______________________________

A Pet Commodore PC from the early 1980's?
I had one in high school, and mine had a tape drive and 8k of memory.
We all thought that was a "powerful" PC back then. A standard Samsung Smartphone is about 10,000 times more powerful that those PC dinosaurs now.

 

@Mr. Fox @Papusan

Classical Swiss Cheese from nCrapia......

a driver cannot fry your card.......LOL, just like how it fried Alienware /LG/Samsung screens, and just like over 50 people on other forums have had their cards turn into barbecue chicken

 

Well, I hold gaming rather close to me. Would you willingly buy a R9 290X right now over a 980Ti if they costed the same price and those were the two best cards available from both vendors, because you hate nVidia's practices?

I have some rather high demands of my system, I won't lie. I bash things because things deserve bashing and fixing. But I only bash it because I care about it. If I didn't care, I would leave it be. I cannot use AMD multi GPU. If the single best card isn't enough for me (I'm not buying the single best card to run a title that comes out 10 days after on medium or low so I can get decent FPS) then I'm going to look into multi-GPU. At least the only single-GPU-only title that sucks for performance that I know of is the ARK: Survival games, and honestly the devs claim they don't know how to optimize even.

I had the same discussion earlier with someone else about multi-GPU when considering 980M SLI vs 980, and I had to break it down for them that it all depended on how they play what games, and when. It's because 980 SLI doesn't exist (I don't count the GT80's version because they're too gimped for power envelope to do anything truly useful) that such choices have to be made. But again, there's no R9 Fury laptop form for cheaper, so there's no way I could recommend an AMD.

A driver could most certainly fry one's card... but doing so without killing the fans and removing thermal safety measures by accident is quite difficult. I DO believe people have had bricked cards and nVidrosoft are just covering their behinds though. In fact, I've seen also that not only do new drivers seem to cripple Fermi cards in Dark Souls 3, but also in the Doom beta. I had a friend update their drivers, first time in YEARS, on a 560M to see if the Doom beta would run better. They lost a solid 20fps just updating their driver and changing nothing else. I told them to go back to 314.22 since that seems to help people on DS3. Make no bones about it, their new drivers are not good news for GPUs.

That being said, the article writer needs to lose his/her job for claiming that WHQL certification on 364.51 would make any difference. 364.47 was a WHQL-certified BSOD-boot-loop driver, and 364.72, while not pulled, seems to be still rather unstable for many users. Even people I expect know what they're doing like Durante when reviewing Dark Souls 3 claimed he got black screen driver failure just using DSR. Digital Foundry got many driver crashes simply playing Quantum Broken at 1080p on lower graphics. WHQL means nothing, and nobody is making a stink about it. Actually... I'ma go talk to Pistol from Tek Syndicate I've known her for some years. Maybe she'll get them to do a segment on it at the least.

 

Engadget is horrible these days. It's a shame because I used to go there multiple times daily to get my tech news. It was my go to site for tech updates. But over time, they got more and more in the pocket of certain companies, starting shoving political views down our throats, and as you have pointed out, their writers post articles as if they are fact when they know little to nothing about the subject they are writing about. In addition, like many other "news" sites out there, most articles and reviews are based on personal feelings and beliefs instead of just the facts. They also started deleting comments that didn't go along with their higher than thou opinions. I no longer visit their site

 

No, I would buy AMD because they increase performance for few years with new drivers tremendously while Nvidia does that for a year with a drop and as it seems these gains are temporary and after couple years just vanish.
That being said I wouldn't buy 290X - too hot/power hungry/oced. I always prefer reliability and stability in IT products over performance. AMD Nano is OK for me.

I was bashing Win10 in the past because I cared expecting my jump on it sooner or later. Now I bash it because I like bashing something which constantly betrays my expectations and privacy. Privacy is crucial for me.
Now it's the same with GPUs. Not die after driver installation is crucial for me. If I buy used laptop it's 5 times more crucial because I get no warranty.

 

If you have a desktop, you have a choice between the 980ti and Fury X at least.. And I would get the Fury X, sick of NVIDIA driver shennanigans..

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I really hope Amd beat Nvidia with new cards who will be released this summer and later on. I hope Nvidia can taste their own medicine aka crippled performance vs Amd. I really hope so.

 

I need a AMD mobile MXM GPU and bye bye 970M..

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Fine, take the heat/power draw of the Fury Nano and give it to the 290X. You're not getting something as strong as any Fury cards. 290X power (not even 390X, with its +250MHz memory clock and slight core clock boost) with 8GB of memory (throwing you a bone here) is the best card available from AMD, but nVidia has the 980Ti, and they cost the same. Which card would you pick?

I bash Win 10 not because of the privacy issues directly, but because it does not do what you tell it to do, and I STILL see reports (even from close friends) of their systems breaking due to Windows 10. A good friend of mine updated Win 10 one day and now he has to manually tell his BIOS what drive to boot from every single time he reboots, because the BIOS doesn't pick the correct drives in the default possible boot lists, and changing the lists doesn't save. His motherboard is under 1 year old and he never did anything to it, and this never happened with any previous system he had.

If you add options to change profiles in Windows 10 and they reset on updates (that you can't disable without hacking the OS) then the options are worthless. Especially the privacy ones. Breaking peoples' system configs because you want more data to sell more products people don't want to said people is awful. The OS was designed to do so, and they won't comment on, admit, or even bother trying to fix those aspects of the OS, but rather spend all their time and money trying to make people downgrade to it. I'm not touching that OS until I have to, and I swear, I hope somebody makes an unofficial backport of WDDM 2.0 that just screws their entire business model for getting gamers to downgrade.

When they want to make an OS for the consumers, cool. Until then, they can sit right there.

 

If I happen to installed the new driver 364.72, do I just need to remove the driver and install the older version? Does that fix the issue?

 

Download DDU and clean out the crippled driver in safe mode. Install 362.00 or your last functioning driver in normal Win mode afterwards. Follow DDU's recommended procedure. Never be a Guinea pig for Nvidia's Gpu bricking projects

 

How can you tell if it's brick? I was gaming yesterday and it seems okay. Does that mean it's okay to continue to leave it?

I have MSI gs60 with 970m.

 

it means it can in a matter of time render your GPU useless and there would be no fix but to change it. If you don't wanna take that chance, then go back to older drivers like 362.00

 

Got it. Thank you. I'll revert it back, hopefully I'll be able to.

 

Use Display Driver Uninstaller to totally get rid of the old driver and all its remnants. When you run it, don't choose normal mode, choose Run in Safe Mode:

 

I'm guessing most people was gaming or used their PCs before their gpu became a brick People don't send out warning without having a reason

 

Downgrading from 364.72 to 362.00 works flawlessly using DDU but don't expect older versions to work. Something changed and I can no longer get my system stable with older drivers after putting this cancer on my machine. Luckily 362.00 is the best driver for me since the 347.88 I held on to for so long. Just be careful, many people have not been able to get their system working properly again after using this driver. If you are using it and you have no problems right now, downgrade before you do.

 

Damnn that's crazy. Didn't know such thing can happen -_- ... I guess I better research next time before updating.

 

From now on I'm not upgrading until drivers have been out at least a month.

 

That is why such threads like this will be created... You should give a big thanks to OP. Rep button is in @Phoenix post. Under the hardware sig

 

Will do ^^

 

I was going to update my drivers to 364.72 since Mirror's edge catalyst closed beta requires 364.51 or higher... Both 364.51 and 364.72 seems to have lots of problems, looks like I am not playing the game.

 

I was able to revert back to 353.74, should I keep this driver? Or any recommendation?

 

I think the latest stable driver is 362.00 from what everyone has to say. Sure, if 353.74 works for you, you can keep it.

 

You can´t get anything older than 362.00 to work anymore after trying 364.72? That´s just sad

 

Constant nonstop TDRs when I use anything older and I'm on Windows 7 so it's not a Windows 10 issue. I haven't even checked to see if Windows 10 has the same issue (it would be ironic if it doesn't because it is actually running 359.06 IIRC) because I just have no reason to use 10 these days. It sits there unused.

 

@Ethrem Please test your old W10 installation...
If it is also no longer stable after using 364.2 driver on W7, then Better Call Saul...

 

I'd rather not. With the luck I'm having lately my computer would explode into flames. I bought a brand new temperature control vape mod the other day, got it Saturday, and I have to RMA it because it has a rapid ticking sound - apparently something got into it before it left the factory that caused an induction thats causing the ohm meter to fire when it shouldn't according to the manufacturer. Besides, my laptop is not getting turned on again until I get my new thermal paste. Between the 25-27C ambient temperatures in my room and the stock thermal paste from Sager finally giving out, my temps are uncomfortably high.

 

Just a note...don't ever update via Geforce Experience...

I updated and immediately noticed frame drops as if something went wrong with the installation. Downloaded directly from site and did a clean install again to make sure everything is stable...