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

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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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Apr 11, 2023
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Fixed!
I ended up fixing the entire thing by just doing a simple Factory Reset + Keep Files lol. Didn't have to wipe, didn't have to find last stable build; just did a simple factory reset and prayed for it to work so I wouldn't have to do anything else, and it worked! NVIDIA drivers can now install and update, my monitor is back to 1920 X 1080 at 144Hz refresh rate, GeForce and Shadowplay are back on my PC, Windows can now update, and the lag is completely gone from my PC, it's as good as it was a couple years ago. Kind of surprised how I was overthinking it so much when I still hadn't attempted such a simple thing as a factory reset.
One thing that does annoy me a bit though is that the "organization" label is still on the settings. Dunno why it's there or what caused it, but I mean, it's not stopping anything anymore. I have full admin access, I can copy the NVIDIA files around, and I can update the PC without any issues, so I guess I'm fine for now.
Thank you all so much for your help! Think I understood a lot about my PC over these last few days, and I'm honestly just relieved to have all my info back and my PC working properly. I've restored all my apps and data, and everything seems intact.