Need help installing new graphics card driver

jdtdwp · 07 Oct 2012

I have an Asus UL80Jt laptop and I want to install a new driver for my graphics card because some of the games that I play were lagging extremely badly. The graphics card I have is a Nvidia GeForce 310m. This is what I've tried so far:

- I downloaded the newest driver from Asus.com for my specific computer and installed it. When I went to restart my computer, I got the starting Windows screen and then it just went black and I let it sit for 20 minutes and still nothing. So I held the power until it turned off and then rebooted, hit f8 and then did "last known good configuration" since the black screen problem happened every time I tried to restart.

- Since that driver download didn't work, I tried two or three different drivers from the Nvidia website (Versions 306.23 and 280.26). They all produced the same result as the one I downloaded from Asus.

- The last thing I did was uninstall the current driver from Device Manager and then attempted to reinstall the last driver that I tried (280.26). When I did this I was able to get to the login screen and then I got to my desktop and it froze. So I had to do another hard restart. This happened a few times and again I had to do "last known good configuration".

Now I am stuck with no graphics card driver at all! Please help if you know what's wrong or if I was using the wrong drivers. Thank you!

essenbe · 07 Oct 2012

You can try this tutorial Drivers - Clean Left over Files after Uninstalling. But also realize the new drivers don't always work well. If using the above tutorial does not work for you, you can also go through the same process and reinstall the older driver that did work.

jdtdwp · 07 Oct 2012

Thanks for the quick response! I will give this a try. Would leftover files from the old driver cause this problem?

essenbe · 07 Oct 2012

Yes they would. Older drivers and new drivers cause a lot of problems. But sometimes, the newer drivers just don't work well with some cards. I know people who are running drivers a year old to avoid problems from newer drivers.

Also, you should probably use your Asus drivers from the Asus site. But if they are like Nvidia drivers from Nvidia. Select custom install and check the checkbox that says "Clean Install". Then install.

jdtdwp · 07 Oct 2012

Ok thanks! Also when using Driver Sweeper would I want to clean Nvidia Chipset or Nvidia Display or both?

essenbe · 07 Oct 2012

Nvidia display ONLY.

jdtdwp · 07 Oct 2012

Ok I cleaned the Nvidia display only and now I downloaded the newest driver for my computer from Asus. When I try to install I get this message: "Setup failed to read the required Display Driver to be used with this package. Setup will not continue." Should I try a different older driver or is something wrong?

essenbe · 07 Oct 2012

Are you sure you downloaded the correct driver for your card? It shouldn't do that. The only time I know of it doing that is if it is the wrong driver. If you have to, reinstall the older driver.

It's possible it was a bad download too.

jdtdwp · 07 Oct 2012

Well I have the model for my computer saved on the Asus website and I went to downloads for it and they have 3 different versions of Nvidia graphics drivers. I tried installing all 3 and all of them produce the same problem.

Britton30 · 07 Oct 2012

you might try these steps to install only the graphics driver.

1.Download the preferred driver and save it to the desktop.
2.Double click the installer and you will see a screen where it will be extracted to, change that to your desktop.
3.Open Device Manager through Control Panel.
4.Expand Display adapters and right click the name for yours and choose Update Driver\Browse my Computer. Select the driver folder you just saved on the desktop. Click Next.
5. Your system should say "Windows has successfully updated your driver software".

If you get a window saying you already have the most current driver, go back to step 4 and choose Uninstall Driver software instead. Then restart from step 3.
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