PC shut down whilst trying to update nvidia driver

[Ohemmy92]

Hi all, totally not tech friendly but have nowhere else left to turn!

I have a PC that is less than a year and a half old. I didn't build it myself and I'm not entirely educated on what is what but yesterday I went to update a driver from nvidia, PC shut off at the same point during several attempts. (Gtx 750. Ti if it helps!) I gave up and then noticed it crashed a further three times whilst watching YouTube videos. Everytime it shuts off it starts up again right away (fans spinning and lights on) but the monitor remains off, no signal. In all of these shut downs I have only ever seen one blue screen. (EDIT: computer has been running flawlessly without issue prior to this with everday use)

To make this even more complicated I have been having issues with my monitor for a couple weeks now (it is ancient, around five years old if not older!) where it makes a high pitched hissing/buzzing sounds and flickers on and off in quick flashes for increasing amounts of time each day, but once on it would stay on with no further problems.

This morning I disconnected everything and took the case panel off and had a peek inside under the phone guidance of another and made sure all wires were plugged in fine. I didn't touch anything I shouldn't have as far as I know. After plugging it back in I get the usual flickers for a couple minutes then it just enters power saving mode.

The monitor also still flickers when not connected to the PC and I'm just testing via power.

Sorry for the long post but I'm unsure if this is two problems or just one caused by a faulty monitor! I have ordered a new one since it's evident I need one but it will not arrive until this evening at the earliest and I'm tearing my hair out wondering if I have a bigger issue.

 

[ErikMcLeod]

Driver support for "older" NVIDIA cards (3 years ago is "old" according to NVIDIA, it's ridiculous) is intentionally bad. They want people to keep buying new cards. The new drivers may never work on your system due to this. I'd advise reverting your drivers, particularly considering that newer drivers likely won't significantly (if at all) improve performance in "older" cards. They're designed to take advantage of the new technology put into the Pascal cards and milk the potential of the 9xx series cards.

The monitor thing just sounds like your monitor is on its last breaths. Something is failing or there's a lack of regulation/frequency somewhere which is causing some component to scream in pain. That likely has nothing to do with your card. If the whining continues with the new monitor, check the source of the noise. If it's coming from your computer, it means your card is the problem (coil whine). It's as simple as that.

In the worst case scenario that your card is the problem, you should have no problem finding a cheap used GTX 950 or you can buy a brand new GTX 1050 for ~$120. I'd advise the latter. But this is of course a somewhat unlikely scenario. Either way, installing a GTX 1050 (or 950) requires no knowledge of building computers, as it has no external power connectors. All you do is put it in the motherboard slot and boop, you're good to go.

But all in all, I say ditch the drivers and use older ones. NVIDIA gimps older cards with newer drivers.