In February of this year, it was revealed that some older computers were unable to run the latest versions of Windows 11 due to the absence of the POPCNT instruction set. It has now come to light that Windows 10 users are also facing issues related to POPCNT, and the culprit appears to be NVIDIA’s graphics drivers.
Approximately a month ago, NVIDIA published an article in its knowledge base stating that it would cease to support older computers lacking the POPCNT instruction set within its drivers. This is not just an informational notice; installing driver version 555 or newer on a system with a supported NVIDIA graphics card but an unsupported processor can lead to complete system failure, including a BSOD with the error code SYSTEM THREAD EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED.
Although these processors are officially unsupported by both Windows 10 and Windows 11 from Microsoft, they were still operational. However, if a user attempts to install display drivers version 555 or higher, a BSOD is guaranteed. It would be advisable for users of such computers to adjust their Windows Update settings to prevent the operating system from automatically downloading driver version 555 or later.
This primarily concerns Core 2 Duo processors, which are now quite scarce—especially when paired with current NVIDIA graphics cards. Therefore, while this scenario is not very common, it is certainly possible. If a system without SSE4.2 and with a GTX 750 Ti or GTX 950 graphics card fails to boot after a graphics driver update, it is now clear why this occurs.
Source: Neowin
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