Hey guys,
 
after updating to 320.18 my card seems to be broken (notice the italic touch on that one) (update: broken, please read further, I'm not allowed to post the permalink due to forum regulations). Since the problem with the 320.18 driver is no news, I just skip that. I got my GTX570 hooked on my first monitor and the onboard grapics adapter is hooked to my second monitor (just fyi). HW-Specs on the bottom of the post, as well as tl;dr.
 
The card ran fine for months (in fact for years, since early 2011), no problems at all. Then I updated to 320.18, normal nvidia CI. Soon as I started any kind of graphics hardware accelerated program, I got a bsod and a bootloop. The bootloop stopped after I pulled the monitor cable from the GTX570. Then onboard graphics took over and everything went back to normal. Reversing to older drivers (314.22, 310.90; DriverSweeper+CCLeaner+Clean Install) didn't do anything, same outcome as before.
 
Update: I got informed not to handle drivers like this anymore, fine for me, wont do that again. Since the card got errors before and after that, driver install failure is not an option, unless some one can explain, why this happened with 320.18 and nividia CI-mode.
 
I reinstalled Windows and tried an even older driver, which ran fine the months before (306.97). Unfortunately with the same outcome: bsod and bootloops. Since I have to work on this pc I just deactivated the GTX570 and deinstalled all drivers (Windows+DS+CC, multiple restarts in between). Yesterday I tried to revive the card again. I deinstalled the GTX570 from the device manager and did a restart to get it back in the system (no device update via windows repository). I installed 314.22 CleanInstall and did a restart.
 
Here is what I was looking at after the restart:

 
(yeah, its a bad photo, but I was not able to do a screenshot, so please spare the hate ;) )
 
Looks like the good old 256 color palette, haven't seen that in while. Windows would find the GTX570 as Standard VGA with an "!" in the device manager (it got that right, there was a problem). I booted in safe mode to deinstall the drivers, the safe mode graphic drivers looked normal though (full screen 640x480, 16bit colors I think). Tried a reinstall with a different driver, same outcome. Since then I did a cleaning of the card (no heatsink removal, since I don't have any hs paste), pulled it back in, same problem. I have no option to test it on other hardware, since none of my friends can fire up this kind of graphics card on their rigs. One thing I noticed after pulling out the card was that the heat sink was extremly hot. It doesn't smell like its burnt though.
 
I know it is strange. I clearly cannot believe that a single driver update can cause this much rant in my system. But you don't have to be very bright either to figure out that this problem came to me after the update of the driver. No problems at all, install update, bang, problems, no chance of reviving (which other users clearly could do, just by reversing the driver to an older one). I cannot update the cards bios since it won't get recognised as GTX570 and I don't want to mess up things anymore. I'm not even mad at Nvidia, maybe this was just a single incident, since there are many people who don't have problems. But I don't find a clear statement on that problem, just some rumours about cards from "friends" being broken.
 
@Evga staff: Are there any returned and damaged cards due to this driver update? I don't want to open an rma unless I can be sure that the card is broken. I got a 10 Year warranty, so I can wait for a few weeks I guess. A statement from you guys would be great!

Final thoughts:
I have no idea what happened to my card, but my experience was, that all problems started right after the installation of 320.18 (again, with CI on the driver set). But there is no fingerpointing in any direction here. The card was old, so this might be a coincidence. Since there is no official statement from nvidia or manufacturers investigating masses of broken cards all I can say is: My card broke down. If the driver really caused the problem? I can't tell, just guess and communicate it. Please do not use this thread to spread misleading information based on false conclusions. The joke is on you otherwise. Lets just wait and see what happens.
 
tl;dr
GTX570 runs fine for months
update to 320.18 -> bsods, bootloops
reversing didn't help -> reinstall windows
installed older drivers -> picture above
any damaged rma cards yet, EVGA?
 
My specs:
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1
Intel i5-3450
Asrock Z77 Pro3 (with onboard IntelHD, hooked to second monitor)
TeamGroup Elite DIMM Kit 8GB PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)
GTX 570 (purchased 3/2011)

Hello maniacvvv,
 
I had a feeling that you show up, thanks for the welcome.
 
My bad, I didn't mention that I tried different cables and monitor setups. The monitors are working fine. My initial driver install after reinstalling windows was like the one in your newer video, with only one monitor hooked to the 570. Right after that -> bsod. Only thing I could try would be to install windows with the Igpu completly turned off in bios. I will do another trial run on the weekend, thanks for the input.
 
Two things really concern me though:

• the card was extremly hot when I got her out of my system, though she wasn't connected to any monitor. Sure, the card will spin up, but I was really surprised about the temperature.
• even after a fresh installed system the card wouldn't accept the driver

Anyway, thanks. I would still like to hear if there are rmas with damaged cards. Right now with only the Igpu in the system, everything is fine.
 
 
 
 
 

Just got back from a local hw dealer. He was so kind to test the card... well, testing isn't the proper word, he just put it on a test rig, fired up the system and there were instant graphic glitches. No more test runs with this card.
 
I can't help myself. Since the card broke down after the update, it is hard for me not to blame the driver. But since there are many possibilities I'll hope for the best. Two strong years it was holding up, maybe it just got old and cranky.
 
Thanks for the help, maniac!

Probably a coincidence , but the same thing happened to my daughters gtx460...
 
Installed drivers, card worked a little, crashed while gaming, then Evga precision stopped working, rebooted, now card wont run games and constantly CTD.
 
Intalled older drivers, same thing, installed an old Gtx275, and its working fine for a week now.
 
Oh well...

I've been running 320.18 drivers on three different video cards and I also fold@home several hours per day so if there was a driver issue I would have known by now.
 
Sounds like your video card just simply decided to fail. Just submit an RMA.

SeanEJohan

LOL@_Nite_, the 320.18 driver is not killing gpu's, their is no evidence that this is happening.

I haven't used this driver yet but it is absolutely possible for a driver to kill a GPU. There was an older driver in the 200 series that caused the GPU to run very hot and could overheat if you didn't have a good fan profile/case cooling.

BTW still running 295.73 cause the newer ones give 500 series cards problems.

Andaya

Hi all,

This is my first post on evga forums, on my way to know why my EVGA GTX 570 videocard was dead last friday after trying to play Battlefield 3. I bought this card two years ago, and I have never had any serious problem except two resets related with high temperatures in the hottest days of the last summer. But last week i installed nvidia certificated 320.18 drivers for better performance and two days later my card was dead. Just before it was damaged i was using for the first time the Geforce Experience software to select the automatic and optimized Battlefield 3 preset in order to have "the best experience" , but when I tried to play the game it crashed while appeared an error message. I thought it was too strange because Battlefield 3 had never failed to load so I tried another time and I got the same results. It was my third attempt when my computer crashed and when I tried to load windows 7 it failed in the same way as sc0repi0 is narrating. I always got BSOD when  trying to load in normal mode but when i tried in safe mode (VGA compatible mode) Windows loads correctly. As sc0repi0 did I made a fresh reinstallation of Windows 7 and it was supposed to be ok but when i put nvidia 314.22 certificated drivers it all began ...BSODs after Windows 7 logo, artifacts on screen ( see image below), etc.


I tried my GTX 570 in another computer with similar crappy results so I have no doubt it is dead. Today i´m using my old GTX275 videocard.

So I´m in doubt because my warranty has expired but i´m not the person who has broken the card. It is supposed that i´m going to be assisted by Evga or Nvidia, but i´m not sure they are going to admit their fault. What can I do?

Thanks in advance,
Javi

 
You need to contact EVGA support so they can check your warranty status...
It certainly appears you card has failed.  

rjohnson11

I've been running 320.18 drivers on three different video cards and I also fold@home several hours per day so if there was a driver issue I would have known by now.

Sounds like your video card just simply decided to fail. Just submit an RMA.

 
I agree. As long as I know a display driver does not change anything inside the card. A bad driver (for example with fans disabled) may make the card fail but unless someone is really stupid it's very difficult a driver can break a card and rolling back solves the issues.