What's the smoothest way to replace an older nVidia card with a newer one?

[BonzaiDuck]

MY system has certain complications -- for instance, the HDCP validation required for Media Center to present my premium channel TV lineup.

I am replacing a GTX 570 with a GTX 780 which arrives today ("out for delivery," per the tracking link).

Every time I update my NVidia drivers and software for the older card, I see that the driver download also covers newer cards in the list.

My GTX 570 also provides the HD audio feed through HDMI with my TV and streaming movie signal.

So. Should I completely uninstall my drivers for the 570 GTX after downloading the latest NVidia driver covering the 780 GTX (and replacing the last download which was only a month old)?

Or can I just drop the new GTX 780 into the system, turn it on and reboot, and expect the drivers that were "there" to recognize the new card? I'm pretty sure I'll have to go through reconfiguration with Media Center.

What's the best wisdom about these issues?

 

[TeknoBug]

No it's best to completely remove the drivers and reinstall again, sometimes the drivers sets a profile for the old card and won't behave with the new card. When you run the Nvidia drivers there's an option "perform clean install" on the bottom.

Had this happen with a GTX260 going to a 560Ti.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

No it's best to completely remove the drivers and reinstall again, sometimes the drivers sets a profile for the old card and won't behave with the new card. When you run the Nvidia drivers there's an option "perform clean install" on the bottom.

Had this happen with a GTX260 going to a 560Ti.

I'd always followed the path you suggest, but I began to wonder if it was necessary. And I can imagine the "creation of a profile" matching whatever card is installed, so . . . I appreciate your input.

Probably the wisest thing, for so little extra trouble -- really.

 

[AntonioHG]

Using the latest drivers (edit: 334.89), I've plugged in my dual 780s, ran them for weeks and swapped them out for a GTX 560Ti to test for the weekend. Nothing bad happened when I went back to the 780s. Running the driver installer again will allow you to do a clean installation. No need to be paranoid about but I will admit that I'm probably in the minority.

Many people recommend uninstalling the drivers, removing the current card, installing the new card and reinstalling the drivers.

 

[Keysplayr]

Just make sure to choose "Custom" and check the "Clean install" box when installing latest Nvidia drivers.

 

[SolMiester]

Dont see any point to un-installing the drivers to reinstall them again myself, as long as you un-install the old card via device manage, shutdown and insert new card, the system will use the current drivers to setup the new card when it detects it.

 

[Gloomy]

I recently dropped a 6950 into my case to validate it before shipping it out. Didn't bother uninstalling the drivers for my R9 290. The system detected the card, and it performed totally within expectations. After I was done, I put in my R9 290 and it also performed as it had before.

I realize these are AMD cards, but I think Nvidia cards would be much the same. As long as the driver you have installed supports both cards, you shouldn't need to uninstall it.

 

[NTMBK]

The NTMBK Foolproof GPU Driver Upgrade Technique Patent Pending

Step 1: Uninstall GPU
Step 2: Uninstall hard drive
Step 3: Beat hard drive to death with hammer
Step 4: Install new hard drive
Step 5: Install new GPU
Step 6: Install new drivers

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Smoothest way to do it is to toss the card into the air having it flip a few times and then land neatly into the slot. Few can achieve this though.

 

[Keysplayr]

The NTMBK Foolproof GPU Driver Upgrade Technique Patent Pending

Step 1: Uninstall GPU
Step 2: Uninstall hard drive
Step 3: Beat hard drive to death with hammer
Step 4: Install new hard drive
Step 5: Install new GPU
Step 6: Install new drivers

I am liking this method. Very much. :thumbsup:

 

[Deders]

Dont see any point to un-installing the drivers to reinstall them again myself, as long as you un-install the old card via device manage, shutdown and insert new card, the system will use the current drivers to setup the new card when it detects it.

Didn't happen when I upgraded. The installer will detect what card you have and install and configure the drivers specifically for your card.

 

[el etro]

Just make sure to choose "Custom" and check the "Clean install" box when installing latest Nvidia drivers.

+1. Use a REG cleaner if you are unsafe with the method.

 

[BrightCandle]

For the 3 minutes of machine time that uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers costs you reduces your chance of problems. We have seen quite a few people who have done upgrades without reinstalling and had issues resolved with a quick reinstall, it seems a simple and cheap enough procedure to just do it.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

For the 3 minutes of machine time that uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers costs you reduces your chance of problems. We have seen quite a few people who have done upgrades without reinstalling and had issues resolved with a quick reinstall, it seems a simple and cheap enough procedure to just do it.

I think you're right there. I'd always been more cautious about this -- doing what our "more cautious brethren" here have suggested. But I did begin to wonder.

Now I see some who didn't have any problems with taking shortcuts. But really -- its about a few minutes of time plus the time to download new drivers.

And -- I see here there are some jokesters like Ayashikaibatsu and NTMBK. I DO have a sense of humor!!

 

[3DVagabond]

Play it a bit of Barry White. Barry's so smooth that you can change over anything in the PCI-E slot and it won't even get noticed until it's too late. /sarc

 

[NTMBK]

And -- I see here there are some jokesters like Ayashikaibatsu and NTMBK. I DO have a sense of humor!!

Joke?

 

[BrightCandle]

Personally when I install new hardware I do a complete OS reinstall. Its probably a bit much considering how much better Windows has gotten over the years and dealing with this sort of problem, but Windows has also never been faster to reinstall as it is today. I got used to driver issues in an age when computers were frankly a bit rubbish, everything had driver problems. I am probably over cautious, but if something does go wrong I get to tell the support team "yep completely clean install latest drivers" and get passed the first line script followers a lot easier.

 

[PG]

My lazy way:

1. update drivers
2. shutdown
3. swap cards
4. push start button and get back to work/games/whatever

Those cards both use the same driver download so I don't see the need to make a big deal out of it.

 

[Deders]

My lazy way:

1. update drivers
2. shutdown
3. swap cards
4. push start button and get back to work/games/whatever

Those cards both use the same driver download so I don't see the need to make a big deal out of it.

They are configured differently, better to uninstall and re-install fresh drivers after swapping the cards. I'm talking from personal experience.

 

[Anuextreme117]

sighs facepalm

 

[bystander36]

Considering that Windows 7 allows you to have two drivers installed at the same time, I prefer to leave my AMD and Nvidia drivers installed. If I ever switch back, my cards work without effort. Vista was likely a problem, as it didn't allow for multiple GPU drivers installed at the same time.

 

[3DVagabond]

They are configured differently, better to uninstall and re-install fresh drivers after swapping the cards. I'm talking from personal experience.

^This.

 

[TeknoBug]

Considering that Windows 7 allows you to have two drivers installed at the same time, I prefer to leave my AMD and Nvidia drivers installed. If I ever switch back, my cards work without effort. Vista was likely a problem, as it didn't allow for multiple GPU drivers installed at the same time.

Works in 8.1 as well, however occasionally the monitor refused to wake up after screen going to sleep until I unplug the DVI from the AMD video card, uninstalling Nvidia drivers stopped that problem (probably prevented "AMD external events" process from running). I occasionally swapped AMD and Nvidia cards once in a while, even had both in different slots and swapping the DVI from one card to the other on the fly was cool. But some drivers just don't get along with each other.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I like to think I'm "an old hand" with what we once called "micro-computers." I suspect that people grounded in "the old days" are a bit cautious, and don't assume that you can just install a new driver over the old one. Albeit -- it's been apparent for a long time that NVidia SW manages this quite well.

So -- what I did, and hardly worth saying: I simply shut down my system after turning off Lucid, but without uninstalling anything. Various notes at the NVidia site or in their "Installation notes" suggest that you need to uninstall each and every component in Windows ->Control-Panel->Programs&Features, if, indeed, you want to uninstall the whole enchilada.

Then I just replaced my old 570 GTX with the new 780GTX card, rebooted, and expected to see a red X on my system-tray sound icon, and the Display adapter node in Device Manager showing "generic VGA card." Which -- is pretty much the way it was.

So I then just ran the downloaded driver update and chose "custom" and "clean install." Reconfigured my default (NVidia-HDMI->ONKYO-Receiver) sound setup, rebooted again, and Media Center worked without a hitch.

Turned Lucid on, played a game, noted that things were "pretty good" with that.

But I also loaded NVidia Inspector. Very interesting! The card with its drivers works in some sort of "adaptive" mode. Since the iGPU HD 3000 is assuming some of the load on my gaming monitor, the 780GTX shows at most about 37% usage, and the "P" state is defaulted to P8!! I tried to set it to P0, and it responds -- but it does so by descending the ladder back to P8!!

Overall power consumption is low, low, low!! The multi-monitor setup works great. The HDTV doesn't reflect the lags I saw with P8 under the GTX 570 -- which made that choice totally unacceptable.

NOW. A question I probably wouldn't ask ten years ago, but I'm old and feel "cautious."

I installed the NVidia native drivers and software from the NVidia web site. I've now inspected the ASUS "ASUS Tweak" disc, and I see that the "drivers" folder simply reflects an older version of those drivers. So I'm guessing I can just selectively install the "Asus Tweak" software, which I'd expect works something like ASUS AI Suite in analog to the CPU and system board. Right?

 

[Deders]

the low power modes are great with these new cards, around 15W at idle.

Asus Tweak is for overclocking your GPU.

Have you tested the cards performance with benchmarks/games yet?