Nvidia just fixed a major problem that may have slowed down your CPU

By Monica J. White Published March 7, 2023

Nvidia’s latest graphics driver came out with an unfortunate side effect — it drained your CPU usage. What’s perhaps worse is that the only way to fix the issue permanently was to go back to an older version of the driver.

Fortunately, the problem was short-lived as Nvidia just rolled out a hotfix, and you should get it quickly to give your CPU a break. Here’s where to find it.

The RTX 4070 Ti graphics card on a pink background. — Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

If you tend to install new drivers the moment they come out, you may have received an unpleasant surprise bundled with Nvidia’s driver 531.18. It came with a bug that made Nvidia Container take up around 10% to 15% of CPU usage.

Recommended Videos

The bug, which seems to have affected each of Nvidia’s best GPUs, was triggered by starting a game and then exiting it. Even though the game wasn’t running anymore, Nvidia Container continued consuming CPU resources. There were only three workarounds available for the bug: rolling back the driver, restarting your PC, or forcing Nvidia Container to shut down after each gaming session.

Nvidia was quick to acknowledge the issue, but it made no promises as to when a fix would be coming. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for a hotfix to appear. It’s now time to update your drivers to Nvidia’s latest version (531.26).

As per the official Nvidia website, the hotfix addresses the issue of Nvidia Container hogging CPU resources and also fixes a problem with random bug checks on notebooks. If you want to get the latest (now functional) version of the driver, head to Nvidia’s support page to download the hotfix for Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Downloading drivers on day one is always a bit of a double-edged sword. Not too long ago, a clash between Nvidia’s drivers and a new Discord update caused the popular app to slow down Nvidia graphics cards. Holding off on updating right away usually helps users avoid these kinds of problems, but it’s also not a great idea to wait too long to install new drivers.

Topics

Monica J. White

Computing Writer

Monica is a computing writer at Digital Trends, focusing on PC hardware. Since joining the team in 2021, Monica has written…

Computing

Nvidia may enter the Arm CPU market after all

Nividia Project Digits on a desktop

According to a recent Reuters report, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has hinted at broader ambitions for the Arm-based CPU within the GB10 Grace Blackwell chip, developed in collaboration with MediaTek. During an investor presentation, Huang alluded to plans for the new desktop CPU by saying, “You know, obviously we have plans.” However, he also added that he would “wait to tell [us]” the details. Cryptic as it may be, this message -- combined with Nvidia's recent developments -- could mean Nvidia might have serious plans for the CPU market.

Huang also noted that MediaTek, the chip's co-developer, has its own aspirations. “They could provide [the CPU] to us, or they could keep it for themselves and serve the market. It was a great win-win,” Huang said, suggesting MediaTek might market the chip independently.

Computing

Nvidia’s RTX 5080 may be better than the RTX 5090 in one small way

The PNY RTX 4080 XLR8 installed in a PC.

The launch of Nvidia's next-gen best graphics cards is right around the corner, and we're getting new leaks about the specs almost every day. Today, Benchlife reveals that the RTX 5080 may be the only RTX 50-series GPU to receive 30Gbps memory modules from the get-go. This would give the RTX 5080 a slight advantage, but there's also some conflicting information about the memory configuration for this GPU.

All of Nvidia's next-gen graphics cards are said to use new GDDR7 memory, and yesterday's Zotac leak confirmed that the RTX 5090 will sport 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM. That's a massive upgrade over the previous generation, but the RTX 5080 won't enjoy the same improvements -- the GPU is said to retain both the 16GB memory and the 256-bit bus we've already seen in the RTX 4080 (and its Super version).

Computing

Nvidia may have found a new way to bypass GPU export restrictions

The RTX 4090 graphics card sitting on a table with a dark green background.

Chinese gamers are expected to have limited access to Nvidia's best graphics card due to strict export restrictions. However, Nvidia may have found a way around it without cutting down its flagship GPU. A new leak suggests that the RTX 5090D will have the same hardware specifications as the worldwide version, and the solution lies in firmware adjustments.

As a quick refresher, the "D" in RTX 5090D stands for "Dragon." It marks GPUs made by Nvidia to bypass the export restrictions imposed by the U.S. on China, which limit the sale of high-performance graphics processors. We first saw it appear in the RTX 4090D as a remedy for the fact that the base RTX 4090 exceeds the performance thresholds set by these regulations.

nproxy.org