This possible? There were complaints from consumers of both camps(Nvidia and ATI) that drivers has caused their video cards to die. If someone could prove this you probably could open a class action suit though if you can some how prove it was the driver's that caused led to the video card's death. I wonder how many of these people were overclocking though.
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Is it possible bad drivers can cause video cards to die?
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Corban227
Gawd
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i would find this unlikely that the driver killed their card. the driver is just operational protocol. in theory though the driver could tell the card to run in a way which could eventually damage the card, however i have enough faith in the vid card companies that they know what they are doing when it comes to writing drivers that wont break a card. damage would most likely come from too much heat or to intense of an overclock
It could be your card overheats when you install them. If your card has problems when installing the drivers i fixed a few of them by reseating the heatsink and reapplying thermal paste. Usually fixes it. Even bad contact from the ram heatsink to the sink would cause something like this. It could be also that your power supply can't handle the load while going into higher voltages. There are different stages of voltages being used when in idle or using games. 
SicKlown42012
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Most of the people who have claimed a driver killed their card haven't taken the final step of reformatting and reinstalling the OS. Only if that failed could you even start to consider the driver causing hardware failure.
The only way I can see a driver causing hardware failure is if the card has software controllable voltage control, in which case something can go wrong and you end up with way too much voltage being pushed through the card. Same thing could be said about the fan too, I guess...
The only way I can see a driver causing hardware failure is if the card has software controllable voltage control, in which case something can go wrong and you end up with way too much voltage being pushed through the card. Same thing could be said about the fan too, I guess...
of course they can. I remember back then nvidia cards were overheating and crapping out because the driver couldn't handle the fan speed control properly. The software runs the hardware, if it can't run it within the safe operational levels it will crap out. That's why companies have testing teams and stringent QA/QC protocols.
WBurchnall
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Do driver updates every include or push bios updates for our video card without specific notice or notice included somewhere in that legal fine print that we almost all 'next' over?
I don't think drivers should realistically cause a video card to die under normal situations. If a new driver install also say happened to check the bios version on your card and 'if' before version 1.x.x.x.4 installed version 1.x.x.x.5 I could see in that case a driver causing a video card to die as there is some risk inherant with all bios updates.
In reality though, if a bios update was pushed with a driver release, ATI/nVidia would need to inform their customers of such due to the risk? In which case, the customers would probably be informed in he several page long legal agreements that we all agree to when installing drivers? Does anyone read the legal agreements and ever bothered checking to see if there is something in there about what the driver/bios updates might do your machine? I'm sure there's the standard we take no liability gargon
I don't think drivers should realistically cause a video card to die under normal situations. If a new driver install also say happened to check the bios version on your card and 'if' before version 1.x.x.x.4 installed version 1.x.x.x.5 I could see in that case a driver causing a video card to die as there is some risk inherant with all bios updates.
In reality though, if a bios update was pushed with a driver release, ATI/nVidia would need to inform their customers of such due to the risk? In which case, the customers would probably be informed in he several page long legal agreements that we all agree to when installing drivers? Does anyone read the legal agreements and ever bothered checking to see if there is something in there about what the driver/bios updates might do your machine? I'm sure there's the standard we take no liability gargon
WBurchnall
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Would you mind leaving? We were trying to have a discussion about video cards being killed or not killed by driver updates not OMG FERMI WILL CHANGE GAMING FOREVER and fanboyism.
If you haven't heard the latest news, Fermi is sound questionable at best in performance, hot, expensive and is 6 months late. So go spam your fanboy crap in another thread? plz and thanks.
I'm not an Nvidia fanboy...
I am an unproud owner of a 5870...
I plan to grab a Fermi and Ebay my 5870 ASAP...
The 5xxx series has been out quite a few months now, and the driver updates are killing the patience of their owners...
The experience of some with the 5xxx would suggest that the answer to the OP's question is yes...
WBurchnall
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Yeah, right. Anyways, the OP was talking about hardware failure when he said 'cause to die' not 'Fanboys, please inform me what drivers are like form ATI and spout how great drivers are from nVidia'.
So was I?
The latest drivers from ATi have made the situation worse for some...
My GPU temps are high at the desktop, and go down when I attempt to game... Even I'm experiencing something bizarre with their latest drivers... It's like Powerplay in reverse...
I assure you I'm not an Nvidia fanatic...
A half-flaky card could get damaged by what Powerplay does, I'd imagine... Clocks/voltages/etc jump eratically all over the place...
WBurchnall
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Really? You failed to post anything about hardware related deaths from drivers, hardware issues that can be caused by drivers, etc until your third post contributing to the thread.
That being said, you make a good point about PowerPlay as being a possible cause for hardware issues if there were bugs that caused an extreme overclock to be applied but I've never hard of such a bug. Such a bug would probalby be widely reported and reviewers/reporters would go nuts on forums. I suspect if anything that program is probably the best debugged program as it could cause hardware failure if it functions improperly as compared to say eyefinity causing glitching in eve online's item boxes(which as a bug already fixed).
Couldn't the same be said for nVidia's overclock applications, rivatuner or Asus's auto-overclock features? I think one of their motherboard's new features is called GPU Overclock where with pressing one button, its suppose to overclock your gpu by up to 50%!* I recall the advertisement having a very specific * there
.Not to mention, if Fermi is actually running at 70C on 70% fan speed as stated by Charlie, how much overclocking room where there be on Fermi versus on the 5870? So I think overclocking apps from nVidia/ATI causing issues would be less likely to occur on the card that has move overclocking headroom?
After all the rumours, speculation and supposed leaked info you would have to be a fanboi if you plan to buy fermi on release, just saying.
Corban227
Gawd
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anyways... back to the topic
i wouldnt worry about a driver killing your card as long as your downloading the legit fully released driver from the company who made it. if that burned up a card and you could prove it, the company would probably replace your card because they were the ones who broke it
i wouldnt worry about a driver killing your card as long as your downloading the legit fully released driver from the company who made it. if that burned up a card and you could prove it, the company would probably replace your card because they were the ones who broke it
sirmonkey1985
[H]ard|DCer of the Month - July 2010
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talk to all those people that had NF200 chipsets with nvidia graphics cards using the 191.07 drivers.. then see if your opinion changes.. hell even the 191.07 drivers caused my AMD chipset to run 12C higher then normal.. and yes even the 196.21 drivers can kill cards since the automatic fan control does NOT work.. it only has 2 speeds.. 40% and 100% and it will only hit 100% when the gpu hits thermal limit until the gpu drops 5C then it goes right back to 40%.. because of this i run my GTX 260 fan at 60% 24/7..
I am one of the many happy owners. It looks like you can't face the fact that you dont have the IQ to troubleshoot your shitty built computer, and shift the blame to ATI driver. Or just a typical lying woodscrew fanboi.
I posted this to explore the issue, not to blame a company. I also made it clear to point out that this has been an issue with both Nvidia and ATI with their recent driver release. My 5870 has personally been flawless and I have used all the drivers up to 10.1 - but seeing some of the complaints with 10.2, I am definitely hesitant to update. I don't know if all this is fan boy misinformation or if people are actually having issues however. But it seems like Nvidia's drivers has caused people hardware failures and ATI drivers have been causing Gsod and possible hardware failure.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/02/23/amd_ati_radeon_dongle_gsod_issues_addressed/2
It was the drivers. 10.2s finally resolved it for me. But hasn't for all, but at least ATi's had those still affected with issues mail ATi theirs card directly.
I would like to note that I never had any issues gaming with my card, though. But I couldn't last a few hours at the desktop. Now my system's rock-solid stable.
And my system never had anything to do with it, with the exception being I was attempting to use an ATi product in it...
At least ATi's attempting to "face facts" Never had such an issue with an Nvidia product, though. Since Nvidia's going to be way late to the game with Fermi, they're have to face some other facts about manufacturing, obviously...
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/02/23/amd_ati_radeon_dongle_gsod_issues_addressed/2
Again, actual issues...
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1500710
Story goes the same for both...
But, with that last link, I say once again, that the answer to the your question is clearly "yes"...
Sikkyu
I Question Reality
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lol PS3 was banned. finally
I would like to add an obligitory
unsuccessful troll is unsuccessful
I would like to add an obligitory
unsuccessful troll is unsuccessful
robble
Supreme [H]ardness
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I had a 4850 go "blank" on me during the 10.2 driver install and it never came back up until I replaced it with a 5850. However, my 5850 went blank on me night before last with the same symptoms. I did get it back up and suspect my DVI cable may be going bad. I need to retest the 4850 using a new DVI cable.
I have a thread on this in the AMD flavor video card forum already so I won't put all the details here.
I have a thread on this in the AMD flavor video card forum already so I won't put all the details here.
Brackle
Old Timer
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LOL PS3 started this thread.
HE KNEW the new nvidia drivers were going to cause peoples cards to overheat and die!!!
laughs
HE KNEW the new nvidia drivers were going to cause peoples cards to overheat and die!!!
laughs
rudy
[H]F Junkie
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Now days built in drivers can control voltage, clocks and fan speeds. All of these things if not properly set up can kill a video card. For a while nVidia 8800 series had bad fan speeds and you had to use your own methods to get the fans working well. They say the operation of the card will turn it off if it over heats but I do not buy it when I can clearly see the artifacts and smell an over heating PCB.