NVIDIA has temporarily withdrawn its GeForce Game Ready and Studio Driver version 595.59 WHQL, released on February 26, 2026. The company pulled the update following widespread user reports of critical bugs affecting GPU fan control, clock speeds, and overall system stability across various RTX graphics card series. NVIDIA has advised users who installed the problematic driver to revert to the previous stable version, 591.86 WHQL.[techpowerup+14]
Driver Intended to Boost Gaming
The 595.59 driver aimed to provide optimal performance for new game releases. It offered day-one optimizations for "Resident Evil Requiem," including support for DLSS 4 with multi-frame generation and DLSS Ray Reconstruction.The update also introduced Game Ready support for "Marathon," featuring DLSS Super Resolution and NVIDIA Reflex technology.Additionally, the driver brought official support for CUDA 13.2, promising performance improvements and general enhancements.[techpowerup+31]
The update also addressed several specific gaming bugs that users previously reported. These fixes included resolving an intermittent black bar on the screen in "The Ascent" on GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs.It fixed green artifacts appearing in "Total War: Three Kingdoms" on RTX 50 series cards.Players of "Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age" saw an end to fatal error crashes after driver updates.Image corruption in "Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019)" was also corrected.A severe performance drop during Act 4 Part 1 of "Quantum Break" was smoothed out as well.Beyond gaming, the driver patched a general bug where AV1 decoding would crash in Blackmagic Design applications.The driver supported GPUs from the GTX 16 series and newer, including the latest RTX 50 series, but no longer supported older Pascal and Maxwell generations.[tech+64]
Users Report Critical Fan and Performance Problems
Despite the intended improvements, users quickly encountered severe issues after installing the 595.59 driver. The most alarming reports focused on GPU fan control. Many users stated their graphics cards only detected a single fan, or fans stopped spinning entirely, ignoring custom fan curves.This faulty fan detection raised concerns about potential GPU overheating and long-term hardware damage.[techpowerup+16]
Other significant problems included unstable GPU frequencies and lower boost clocks.Some users with high-end cards like the GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 observed the driver capping GPU voltage around 0.95 V, which directly reduced performance.Stability issues also plagued systems, with reports of black screens, driver crashes, system freezes, and hard restarts.Some users noted performance drops in games, particularly those running on Unreal Engine 5, and reported problems with titles like "Battlefield 6" and "Cyberpunk 2077."Issues with HDR signal loss on Samsung TVs and display sleep resume problems on Samsung ViewFinity S9 5K monitors also surfaced.[techpowerup+25]
NVIDIA's Response and Rollback Guidance
NVIDIA acknowledged the issues on February 26, stating, "We have discovered a bug in the Game Ready and Studio 595.59 WHQL drivers and have removed the downloads temporarily while our team investigates."The company promptly removed the driver from its download pages.[techpowerup+14]
For users who had already installed the 595.59 driver and experienced problems, NVIDIA's official guidance was to roll back to the previously stable driver version, 591.86 WHQL.Users can typically perform this rollback through the NVIDIA app by navigating to the Drivers tab and selecting the option to reinstall the previous driver.For more stubborn cases, a clean uninstall using a tool like Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) followed by a fresh installation of the 591.86 driver was recommended.[techpowerup+24]
Broader Implications for Driver Releases
The rapid release and subsequent retraction of a WHQL-certified driver sparked discussion within the tech community. WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) certification indicates that a driver has passed Microsoft's compatibility and stability tests.The occurrence of such critical flaws in a certified driver raises questions about the rigor of testing processes, especially given NVIDIA's reported fast release cadence for new hardware and software.[club386+6]
Industry observers note that the pressure to deliver "Game Ready" drivers for new titles on launch day can sometimes lead to compressed quality assurance timelines.This incident serves as a reminder that while frequent updates offer new features and bug fixes, they also carry risks. For end-users, waiting a few days after a new driver release for community feedback can help avoid potential issues.NVIDIA's swift action to pull the driver and provide rollback instructions demonstrated a commitment to user safety, but the event underscores the complexities of modern driver development and validation.[windowsforum+1]
