Lately, NVIDIA’s GPU drivers have been causing quite a stir among users of the GeForce RTX 40 series, as well as those with older models. Unfortunately, NVIDIA hasn’t yet provided a fix for these issues.
### Growing Concerns with Driver 572.XX Affecting RTX 40 GPUs
After launching the RTX 50 series this January, NVIDIA seems to have placed the RTX 40 series on the back burner when it comes to resolving bugs. Of course, it’s typical for companies to shift their focus to newer releases. But, while the RTX 50 series, too, faced the expected hiccups like blue screens of death, the RTX 40 series was fairly stable with older drivers. That changed with the new RTX 50-compatible drivers, which brought along a slew of issues for the RTX 40 users.
On Reddit, a user going by the name u/Soctty1992 shared personal insights on the troublesome 572.XX driver. They highlighted several overlapping reports of common bugs, such as severe system crashes, black screens, and display glitches—problems that were seldom seen before this driver update.
PSA: Nvidia Widespread Black Screen or Hard OS Crash Issues on 4xxx (or older) Series Cards Need To Be Widely Known & Fixed. byu/Scotty1992 inhardware
Interestingly, many users found relief by switching back to the 566.XX drivers, which were available before NVIDIA’s release of the 572.16 driver on January 30th for RTX 5090 and RTX 5080. While the new RTX 50 series brought exciting features like DLSS 4, Multi-Frame Generation, and DLSS Override, the problems aren’t solely due to activating these. Instead, they seem to stem from a combination of different factors that require further investigation.
One gamer shared that his experience with Cyberpunk 2077 on RTX 4080 was fraught with crashes right from the get-go. Reverting to the pre-572.XX drivers proved to be his saving grace. Another user with an RTX 4090 reported numerous glitches like black screens and freezes, along with monitors refusing to turn on—all of which were resolved with the older 566.XX drivers.
Regrettably, NVIDIA hasn’t paid much attention to these user-reported bugs since late January, focusing more on fixing BSODs with the RTX 50 series—and even that took weeks. Many RTX 40 users are opting to downgrade their drivers, sacrificing the benefits of the latest releases. These include features like the Transformer Model DLSS 4, revamped Ray Reconstruction, and an expanded selection of DLSS-supported games.
