Nvidia is investigating reports of crashes plaguing RTX 5090 and 5080 GPUs, with possible driver issues maybe hitting RTX 4000 models too

February 8, 2025

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Nvidia is investigating reports of crashes plaguing RTX 5090 and 5080 GPUs, with possible driver issues maybe hitting RTX 4000 models too

February 8, 2025

Nvidia’s RTX 5090 and 5080 graphics playing cards are experiencing nasty points
This may very well be tied in to the most recent drivers, given issues are seemingly additionally affecting RTX 4000 GPUs
Nvidia is “investigating the reported points” and hopefully we’ll hear extra from Group Inexperienced earlier than lengthy

Nvidia is investigating experiences of issues with its new RTX 5000 GPUs which is inflicting some graphics playing cards to crash. The problems seem like occurring repeatedly for some, in quite a lot of circumstances, probably leaving Group Inexperienced with a serious headache round its new playing cards.

The troubles started when Nvidia pushed out a brand new graphics driver (model 572.16) and folks began experiencing crashes with some PC video games. After that got here experiences of the RTX 5090 misfiring badly, together with crashes occurring, or the GPU not being acknowledged by the host PC. (And even the odd story of a Blackwell flagship being bricked, however we have to be very cautious round these uncommon assertions).

The issues now appear extra widespread, and are apparently affecting each RTX 5090 and 5080 fashions, with repeated crashes occurring as famous – usually freezes leaving you looking at a black display.

A part of the issue right here is the wide selection of circumstances that these totally different issues are manifesting in. From apparently non-functional GPUs to points with multi-monitor setups, there’s a bewildering array of nuances to the person complaints from RTX 5090 and 5080 house owners.

Nvidia informed PC Gamer that it’s now “investigating the reported points with the RTX 50-series,” and I’ve obtained a sense that this presumably deep dive into what’s happening right here goes to take a while.

(Picture credit score: Nvidia)

Evaluation: Clear set up to treatment driver blues?

Clearly, the amount of experiences throughout the same old boards (Reddit, and Nvidia’s personal message board) has prompted Nvidia to tell us it’s certainly taking motion on this entrance. Till we hear additional suggestions from Group Inexperienced, all we are able to do is trawl by means of an entire pile of urged fixes, a few of which work for some of us, however not for others.

Nonetheless, this may of worms does seem like associated to the most recent driver, an concept backed up by a scattering of experiences of issues with RTX 4000 graphics playing cards and this most up-to-date GPU driver. As PC Gamer theorizes, these gremlins would possibly pertain to outdated driver recordsdata kicking about within the background, clashing with the brand new setup in some way after the person has put in this newest driver.

That’s why our sister web site advises a full driver wipe (utilizing Show Driver Uninstaller, or DDU, to totally take away each little bit of the outdated graphics driver; this doesn’t occur with a standard set up – tiny bits of driver detritus can stay) earlier than establishing your shiny new RTX 5000 GPU.

So, driver-wise, your decisions are to roll again to the earlier Nvidia graphics driver earlier than this newest launch, or do a full wipe (utilizing DDU as talked about) earlier than reinstalling the most recent driver, retaining your fingers firmly crossed.

Or, simply stay together with your gaming PC as it’s – if the crashing isn’t excessively annoying in your specific case – within the hope that Nvidia deploys a hotfix quickly sufficient. It’s doable this might occur, as one just lately arrived to resolve the crashing points with a few video games within the newest driver.

In the meantime, in case you’re in ‘stay with it’ mode, there are some widespread workarounds you’ll be able to attempt that are easy and have accomplished the trick for some of us. They embrace turning off HDR in Home windows 11 (assuming you’ve it on, after all) and decreasing the refresh charge of your monitor to 60Hz.

The latter seems to have labored for a good few individuals to resolve some, if not all, of the crashing. In order that’s one to have a shot with, positively. It may additionally assist to clarify why multi-monitor setups are seemingly probably extra wonky, as if there are monitor-related points within the driver, then clearly they’re extra more likely to occur in that situation.

Keep in mind that as suggested previously, some RTX 5090 house owners have discovered an answer in going into the BIOS and dropping down their graphics card from utilizing PCIe 5.0 to PCIe 4.0. That can imply the GPU runs slower, however not in a serious approach, and if it means a crash-free expertise then clearly that’s a significantly better path ahead for now, as a short lived repair, till Nvidia comes out with its report (and hopefully a repair).

As already famous, I’ve a sense that the answer is perhaps a tough one right here, so I’m not overly optimistic a couple of fast hotfix – however you by no means know.