NVIDIA is  recalling driver update 196.75 WHQL, released March 2nd, due to a issue causing GPU fans to stop working thereby allowing the card to overheat to the point where they completely burn out.

Game producer, Blizzard, first noticed the problem when it began receiving a high number of tech support requests about malfunctioning and overheating video cards. A quote from a representative stated:

“We’re getting reports where users are getting intermittent low FPS after installing these drivers. 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.”

The driver’s can no longer be found on NVIDIA’s website and the company has issued a press statement requesting users reverted to the previous 196.21 WHQL certified drivers.

“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.”

If you recently performed the driver update, we recommended that you immediately roll back to a prior revision, even if you have not yet noticed any issues.

Driver Download

Windows XP: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_196.21_whql.html
Windows XP 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_196.21_whql.html
Windows Vista/7 32-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_32bit_196.21_whql.html
Windows Vista/7 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_196.21_whql.html