Question NVIDIA problem I've been having for a few months now ?

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cyanidezig

cyanidezig

Apr 11, 2023
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I found this website while browsing, and I saw a lot of tech-savvy guys on here, so I thought maybe someone could help me out or suggest any fixes to some problems I've been having in my PC for the past 8-9 months, because I'm not too smart with PCs myself 🙁

3 years ago, I got a new PC. I'll leave the specs at the end, but this PC has been working really well for most of it's lifetime so far, excepting some small issues. Last year, however, I started to notice some really weird problems with my NVIDIA card. I suddenly couldn't ShadowPlay anymore. I tried checking what was wrong with it through the Geforce app, and it said that my Geforce app needs to be updated, and so I tried to do that. However, the app just didn't update. I tried over and over, restarted the PC, I closed all NVIDIA apps in the background(because that was what the website for NVIDIA said), and eventually I even tried uninstalling the drivers and restarting my PC. None of these worked.

I then saw on a forum that you should install an update for your NVIDIA driver through the website. So I tried doing that, but the same thing happened, the update just wouldn't happen. It kept stopping at the end, saying that it failed.

This doesn't affect me TOO much, but whenever I try to fix it, I just seem to run into a dead end. I read in another forum about a guy who was having similar problems as me, and that they uninstalled and re-installed Geforce and that fixed their problem, but when I tried to do that, the installation wouldn't happen. So I just kind of lost Geforce on my PC too.

If I try to run emulators, they just don't run well, because I cannot connect to my Graphics card on the settings. My NVIDIA control panel just kept crashing for a week, but that just suddenly stopped happening one day. A lot of places I checked just said to update Windows, but a similar problem to the NVIDIA apps keeps happening to me for Windows too. When the update is almost over, it suddenly just stops, restarts the PC and says that the update failed. Troubleshooters don't work, I don't know how to fix the "Update Windows" issue, and the NVIDIA problem just becomes more and more annoying every month.

What's weird is that for Steam games, my Graphics Card seems to work just fine. I can run most games on a high quality setting without drops below 100 FPS, but there's still all the problems that I mentioned above.
So that is my situation. Hope someone can help me out, or at least give a suggestion that would help me in the right direction, because I honestly just gave up after a few months. The only thing left that I can do is just completely wipe my PC and install Windows anew, and I would like to hold off on that in case there's anything else I can do.

My PC Specifications:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3300X 4-core Processor
CPU cooler: (I do not know..)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Processor - B450M DS3H WIFI-CF
Ram: 16.0 GB
SSD/HDD: SSD, Storage - 1TB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER
PSU:
Chassis: Gigabye C301 Glass
OS: Microsoft Windows 10
Monitor: BenQ Mobiuz EX2510
 
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Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model.

When the update is almost over, it suddenly just stops, restarts the PC and says that the update failed. Troubleshooters don't work, I don't know how to fix the "Update Windows" issue, and the NVIDIA problem just becomes more and more annoying every month.
You're tried using DDU to remove your GPU drivers?
 
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Thank you for the responses! I'll definitely keep in mind the format for specs, sorry about that

No, I haven't tried DDU yet. Might test this out soon, will let you all know if it worked

So I use DDU, uninstall my drivers, and then freshly install my new NVIDIA drivers, right?
 
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Lutfij said:
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model.

When the update is almost over, it suddenly just stops, restarts the PC and says that the update failed. Troubleshooters don't work, I don't know how to fix the "Update Windows" issue, and the NVIDIA problem just becomes more and more annoying every month.
You're tried using DDU to remove your GPU drivers?
Click to expand...
Um...
I used DDU. I attempted to restart in safe mode and everything happened as per a youtube guide I was watching. However, the guy said that once I restarted, the graphics driver should install cleanly and I can change all my display settings back. This did NOT work. My NVIDIA graphics card installer failed for the umpteenth time, and my PC is now stuck at 1024 X 768 at 59 FPS. I cannot change my monitor settings and my NVIDIA drivers are gone. Please help, anything will be appreciated. I have no idea if I should just completely wipe this pc and start anew, and I would like to not do that because I have too much stuff installed in here, and it'll take me multiple days to make a new sweep, not to mention losing a good amount of data potentially.
 
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Please let me know if there is anything I can do or if a clean reinstallation will solve my problems. I am very close to a breakdown because I have spent weeks on this problem hitting dead ends and today, my entire desktop has utterly gone to <Mod Edit>. This PC was not cheap and if I have jeopardized it permanently, I am very very screwed.
 
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Ddu should have completely wiped any nvidia drivers so the idea would be that you would be able to reinstall the drivers from nvidia. If you still can’t, I’d recommend back up your data and do a clean install and see where it goes.

Perhaps the gpu got damaged somehow? Which you could try another gpu to see. Fortunately the prices are a lot more favorable now on the lower end than a year or two ago.
 
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www.techpowerup.com

NVCleanstall v1.19.0 Download

NVCleanstall lets you customize the NVIDIA GeForce Driver package by removing components that you don't need (or want). This not only keeps things ti
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

Try GameReadu driver only.

If not, press Win button + R, enter devmgmt.msc, find the display adapter, select upgrade driver and force feed it the 1660 from the package.
 
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HeerZakdoeK said:
www.techpowerup.com

NVCleanstall v1.19.0 Download

NVCleanstall lets you customize the NVIDIA GeForce Driver package by removing components that you don't need (or want). This not only keeps things ti
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

Try GameReadu driver only.

If not, press Win button + R, enter devmgmt.msc, find the display adapter, select upgrade driver and force feed it the 1660 from the package.
Click to expand...
If I manually select a driver version after booting NVCleaninstall, which one should it be? There's many options
 
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ohio_buckeye said:
Ddu should have completely wiped any nvidia drivers so the idea would be that you would be able to reinstall the drivers from nvidia. If you still can’t, I’d recommend back up your data and do a clean install and see where it goes.

Perhaps the gpu got damaged somehow? Which you could try another gpu to see. Fortunately the prices are a lot more favorable now on the lower end than a year or two ago.
Click to expand...
Maybe so, but the PC was still working half decently on its outdated drivers...reinstalling just removed every possible driver it has
 
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Start the WHQL package. It will extract the files to a folder called NVIDIA on the C: drive. When the installer starts, copy that folder somewhere safe, then quit the installer. The folder in C will disappear, but you can now direct the 1660 in device manager to your copy of the folder by 'Update driver' and 'Have disk' in the device manager. This should at least bring your resolution back.
 
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HeerZakdoeK said:
Start the WHQL package. It will extract the files to a folder called NVIDIA on the C: drive. When the installer starts, copy that folder somewhere safe, then quit the installer. The folder in C will disappear, but you can now direct the 1660 in device manager to your copy of the folder by 'Update driver' and 'Have disk' in the device manager. This should at least bring your resolution back.
Click to expand...
I did this, but when I'm trying to paste the NVIDIA driver in any folder, it's just saying "An unexpected error is keeping you from copying the folder" with Error 0x80004005 ;-;
 
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OK. You don't have enough permissions in Windows to do...any of the things you need I hope. That would make this the 1 problem, and a silly one at that.
Normally Nvidia setup files are run as Administrator by default (blue and yellow shield visible on the icon?). If so and you're running these setups with Admin priviliges... yet unable to install the GPU, you'll have to put yourself back in power. You have Windows Home or a more complete version?
 
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HeerZakdoeK said:
OK. You don't have enough permissions in Windows to do...any of the things you need I hope. That would make this the 1 problem, and a silly one at that.
Normally Nvidia setup files are run as Administrator by default (blue and yellow shield visible on the icon?). If so and you're running these setups with Admin priviliges... yet unable to install the GPU, you'll have to put yourself back in power. You have Windows Home or a more complete version?
Click to expand...
Oh, <expletive deleted>
I realize that I should have mentioned this in my original post. A year or so ago, my PC had suddenly started taking very long to boot. Like 35-40 minutes. My brother (who bought and set up my PC for me, because I'm not very good in this field) didn't know what to do either, so he eventually just ended up saving all of my info and getting a clean new installation of windows. That seemed to have fixed the problem I'd been having, but Windows was now deactivated. My brother used a third party product key because the activate windows watermark was off-putting.
So could an improper Windows key have been causing all of this? Because yeah, when I'm trying to do certain administrator activities, specifically with my NVIDIA drivers, it basically ends at "access denied", even though I've set myself as an administrator multiple times using multiple methods, cmd prompt being the one I can remember.
So what can I do to fix this? Would deactivating windows or removing the third party key allow me to install the NVIDIA drivers and everything?
 
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cyanidezig said:
Oh, <expletive deleted>
I realize that I should have mentioned this in my original post. A year or so ago, my PC had suddenly started taking very long to boot. Like 35-40 minutes. My brother (who bought and set up my PC for me, because I'm not very good in this field) didn't know what to do either, so he eventually just ended up saving all of my info and getting a clean new installation of windows. That seemed to have fixed the problem I'd been having, but Windows was now deactivated. My brother used a third party product key because the activate windows watermark was off-putting.
So could an improper Windows key have been causing all of this? Because yeah, when I'm trying to do certain administrator activities, specifically with my NVIDIA drivers, it basically ends at "access denied", even though I've set myself as an administrator multiple times using multiple methods, cmd prompt being the one I can remember.
So what can I do to fix this? Would deactivating windows or removing the third party key allow me to install the NVIDIA drivers and everything?
Click to expand...
No idea. When windows starts, I click the 'Sign in' button and I have admin rights. The watermark has diplomatic immunity. We make it work. So you log into like 'me@ilovewindows' by photographing a pin code that gets texted to your thumbprint reader?
 
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cyanidezig said:
so he eventually just ended up saving all of my info and getting a clean new installation of windows. That seemed to have fixed the problem I'd been having, but Windows was now deactivated.
Click to expand...
Just doing clean install on exactly same components as before should not deactivate Windows. Was it properly activated before with legit key?

In any case there are two main reasons driver installer won't work: Windows is somehow corrupted or physical problem with device. After what you described both options are equally possible. You mentioned brother - can you let him check your GPU in his PC if it is still working correctly? That would probably fastest way of finding what's going on here.
 
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As DRagor said, no idea why another product key was used unless this was another os previous to win10. Since win10, the key was digitalised and tied to the motherboard id so reinstalling windows would activate soon as you logged in to your Microsoft account as the sign in.

Regarding drivers, just get it from here. I seen other links but didn't see this. [Edit] im seeing caption in a different language from Geforce, not sure if it's this forum since update or something else lol, anyways the link does take you to American site.

www.nvidia.com

Download The Latest Official GeForce Drivers

Download the latest official GeForce drivers to enhance your PC gaming experience and run apps faster.
www.nvidia.com

Do manual search, input fields and run the installer (don't need to extract) as administrator by right clicking mouse, you'll see the option there. In the installer can choose express or custom. That's up to you, either should be fine.
 
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