NVIDIA Drivers or the 470? Limitations of running w/out NV Driver(s)

rcanino · 27 May 2014

Hi guys -

Gigabyte GTX 470; Windows 7 Pro 64 sp1

Time-Out errors and a couple BSOD started a few weeks ago - 470 is just about dead. I deleted all the NV stuff on my computer - everything including NVIDIA registry folders.

Now I can boot into Windows but only 1 monitor is active. I have 2 24" displays connected but only 1 works and (right-click desktop>screen resolution) 1600x1200 is the highest res listed, although the native resolution on these monitors is 1920x1200.

Any ideas on how to get both displays working at their native 1920x1200 resolution? Is that even possible without installing an NVIDIA driver?

Well if you have any thoughts, ideas etc. I would really appreciate hearing them. Thank you for reading my tale of woe!

Thanks again!
-Richard

Gary · 27 May 2014

I am currently using a GTX 460 but I am removing it sometime today as I have ordered an EVGA 750Ti. I have all kinds of driver problems with the 460 and all of the gaming features do not work such as shadow play. The only driver that works was the 314.22. The 750 is not the best out there but it is the best that I can afford. Nvidia is going to stop supporting some of the old cards.

rcanino · 27 May 2014

I ended up manually removing all the NV stuff on my computer and now running the basic VGA driver from MS. For now it'll have to do - very limited functionality but it beats running in Safe Mode.

If I were you I would get rid of all the NV stuff on your machine before installing your new card. Old drivers, folders, registry entries - all that stuff can cause conflicts when you install new HW.

Here is the instructions I followed and they worked perfectly.

How to: Remove Your NVIDIA GPU Drivers.

Gary · 27 May 2014

rcanino said:

I ended up manually removing all the NV stuff on my computer and now running the basic VGA driver from MS. For now it'll have to do - very limited functionality but it beats running in Safe Mode.

If I were you I would get rid of all the NV stuff on your machine before installing your new card. Old drivers, folders, registry entries - all that stuff can cause conflicts when you install new HW.

Here is the instructions I followed and they worked perfectly.

How to: Remove Your NVIDIA GPU Drivers.

Try This:

Display Driver Uninstaller 12.8.2

rcanino · 27 May 2014

Right. I should've mentioned there are many alternatives to doing it manually. There is a lot of driver-removal software available. I tried driversweeper years ago; it did a decent job but left a lot of empty folders.

If you do it manually you won't end up with empty directories and broken links inside your registry. Just follow the directions and you'll be fine, nothing to it.

[edit: I see Display Driver Uninstaller requires .NET Framework 2.0 +]

Gary · 27 May 2014

You should have that I have .Net Framework 4.5.2 This DDU wipes out all Nvidia traces. It just works.

rcanino · 27 May 2014

@Gary re: .NET Framework "you should have that"

Why? It's totally unnecessary unless you have a specific need for it. If you want to use that driver-removal program fine. In that case at least advise people to d/l and install only the latest version.

Not everybody has tons of free space on their boot drive. For instance my workstation has a 128GB SSD boot drive. I need to be aware and selective about what I install. .NET Framework 4.0 is over 800MB and then you have to patch it regularly. For me .NET Framework is unnecessary.

I would rather remove drivers (and their associated registry entries and directories) manually, assuring myself I got everything off my system, rather than downloading and installing 2 different programs, one of which is huge and requires constant maintanence and the other I may use just once.

YMMV!