Saturday, February 22nd 2025
NVIDIA Investigates GeForce RTX 50 Series "Blackwell" Black Screen and BSOD Issues
NVIDIA's problems with its latest flagship RTX 50 series "Blackwell" GPUs continue. First, it was melting power cables, then stability issues, and recently, the case of missing ROPs. Today, we got a confirmation that NVIDIA is investigating users experiencing significant stability problems, with reports of widespread black screen issues and system crashes since the launch of the dedicated 572 driver branch. Unlike owners of previous generation cards who can roll back to stable drivers, RTX 50 series users are particularly affected as no alternative drivers are available for their hardware. The problems span across the entire RTX 50 lineup, including the 5090, 5080, and newly announced 5070 Ti models. Users have reported issues ranging from display flickering to complete system failures, with some experiencing blue screen of death (BSOD) errors during normal operation.
The situation is especially problematic when using advanced features like DLSS 4 frame generation. NVIDIA staff member Manuel recently addressed these concerns on the GeForce Forums, confirming that the company is actively investigating the problems. Preliminary investigation suggests the issues might extend beyond driver software, potentially requiring VBIOS updates to resolve the stability problems fully. Some users have found temporary relief by reducing PCIe speeds below Gen 5 or lowering monitor refresh rates to 60 Hz, suggesting potential firmware-level compatibility issues. However, these workarounds are not guaranteed solutions for all affected users. The latest driver update (572.47), which added support for the RTX 5070 Ti, failed to address these critical stability issues, including only a single bug fix related to monitor wake-up from sleep mode. This has left many early adopters of the RTX 50 series frustrated with their premium hardware purchases.
Sources:
GeForce Forums, via Tom's Hardware, VideoCardz
The situation is especially problematic when using advanced features like DLSS 4 frame generation. NVIDIA staff member Manuel recently addressed these concerns on the GeForce Forums, confirming that the company is actively investigating the problems. Preliminary investigation suggests the issues might extend beyond driver software, potentially requiring VBIOS updates to resolve the stability problems fully. Some users have found temporary relief by reducing PCIe speeds below Gen 5 or lowering monitor refresh rates to 60 Hz, suggesting potential firmware-level compatibility issues. However, these workarounds are not guaranteed solutions for all affected users. The latest driver update (572.47), which added support for the RTX 5070 Ti, failed to address these critical stability issues, including only a single bug fix related to monitor wake-up from sleep mode. This has left many early adopters of the RTX 50 series frustrated with their premium hardware purchases.
244 Comments on NVIDIA Investigates GeForce RTX 50 Series "Blackwell" Black Screen and BSOD Issues
Actual power issues aside though. Gathering meta reports from around the internet imo it starts to paint a picture in regards to silicon issues in regards to everything else. I dont really have high hopes this is going to get fixed with a vbios update or even drivers like they claim. If anything there will be simply "less" cards on the market that are......marketable as internal QA with partners and nvidia get more serious now because of the news; and affected users proceed with RMAs.
Thats a super long winded way to say. I dont think software's gonna fix this chief.
To be fair; the actual core thermal performance of the 5xxx series appears to be fantastic.
except what res/settings you can run a game at, depends mainly on the game.
i have no trouble playing all (MY) games at 2160p/60 with VRR enabled, only with Horizon 5 i now have to drop from extreme/ultra to get fps steady.
not everyone plays the same games, and basically all games 5y or older should be no problem to run native 4K on mid/higher tier cards.
As an SI I am never short of alternative hardware - there's a dusty 2080Ti and a spare 4060Ti sitting on a shelf next door right now, but I won't be able to get a 5070Ti alternative right now. I might still flip it on eBay when the 9070XT comes out. I like having two desktops with both an AMD and Nvidia GPU under the same roof so that I can always see the experience for myself in real-time, but this 5070Ti isn't undervolting as well as I'd hoped, so it's probably not a candidate to replace the 4060Ti 16G in the HTPC which needs to be near-silent in a very specific, and not particularly well-cooled case.It's not really a recommendation, in the same way that I wouldn't recommend people buy a 4080S or 4070Ti Super. That level of performance is a long way off the performance/$ sweet spot and I still think the 7800XT at £470 today is the best option for an overwhelming majority of gamers looking for the sweet spot. If you can get a 4070S for under £550 or a 7700XT for under £375 those are also awesome choices. All three of those cards will run a game well, at high details, high refresh or both and allow you to get the full experience from just about any game that's out right now. Beyond a certain point, improving the graphics hits diminishing returns and if the game is good it's unlikely to be good because of the graphics.
My point was that even an £850 5070Ti is objectively, measurably better performance/$ than the 7900XTX, 4080S, and 4070Ti Super. The price of 40-series cards has gone back up to silly money again in the last month because all of the supply has dried up and the flagship AMD card was never a good value in the first place.
A lot of people see high end graphics cards selling like crazy and assume the same people who always buy them are still doing so when in reality it's mostly AI buyers using the cards for work while your normal gamers are being pushed down the stack.
One thing I'd like to point out here too and that is that the "reviewers" that got these cards for "free" failed at doing the required checks with specs etc.
www.techpowerup.com/332103/amd-cpus-had-92-market-share-at-german-pc-hardware-retailer-in-january
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..........got ya, sUcKaS.........
Surely they can afford 20 people to test their drivers and run various configurations, or are all of their developers and testers at AI now?