What just happened? It seems that Nvidia has begun addressing at least one of the numerous issues plaguing the RTX 5000-series. A solution for the black screen problems affecting certain Blackwell GPUs, as well as earlier card generations, is now available for some users, with an upcoming driver update set for release later this week.
Last week, there was news that Nvidia was investigating the black screen and system instability issues impacting RTX 5000-series, 40-series, and 30-series cards. Nvidia had acknowledged the concerns the previous week following the release of the 572.16 driver.
Despite three generations of cards being affected, the RTX 5000 series seemed to encounter the majority of problems, which included everything from minor stuttering and crashes to blue screens of death.
There were reports of some users managing to circumvent the issues by capping their display’s refresh rate at 60Hz, which isn’t ideal when gaming on high-end cards.
Currently, Nvidia has pinpointed the issue, although they haven’t disclosed what it is yet. A Reddit user (via VideoCardz) mentions that their MSI Gaming Trio RTX 5080 received a VBIOS update that completely resolved the black screen problems. Reportedly, it even enhanced some extra performance from the card.
An Nvidia representative responded to the Reddit post, confirming that this was an official fix. They mentioned that any user whose card hadn’t received a VBIOS update could download the driver releasing later this week, which applies the same fix.
While this hopefully signifies that the issues are being resolved across all affected cards, it presents another public relations challenge for Nvidia.
The RTX 5000 series has been criticized as one of the worst graphics card launches in recent memory. Not only have there been disappointing generational improvements, nearly non-existent stock levels, and high prices, but the problem with melting cable connectors has resurfaced and there are cards with missing ROP units.
It was reported yesterday that the RTX 5080 has joined the list of cards with missing ROPs, prompting questions as to why Nvidia didn’t mention this fact when acknowledging that some RTX 5090 and 5070 Ti cards were affected. Nvidia, of course, derives most of its revenue from its data center products, so perhaps the company is less concerned about these issues.
