[SOLVED] PC thinks my RTX 2060 is a 970 ?

Jun 19, 2025
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Hello everyone. My PC thinks I’m using a 970 but I have a 2060 installed.

My friend gave me his old GIGABYTE RTX 2060.

I powered down my PC and removed the 970 GPU and installed the 2060. I foolishly figured my PC and windows would auto detect the new GPU and just change a few settings around. At most I would have to update a driver or 2, right?

Well 11 hours later of deleting drivers, downloading drivers, getting a (this NVidia graphics driver is not compatible with your device… This graphics driver could not find the compatible graphics hardware.) message 20 times, deactivating devices, uninstalling GeForce Experience, booting into safe mode while disabling internet and using DDU to try a clean install (twice), I’m fresh out of ideas and I can’t seem to find any help with similar cases. I figured I would ask the pros.

Can someone please help me out?

The main issue I’m having is no matter what I try my PC thinks I have the 970 installed. Even when I finally got the NVidia driver 576.80 installed (supposedly) my Device Manager> Display Adapters says NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970. And under driver version its says 32.0.15.7680

Any help would be appreciated.

Operating System Windows 10 Home 64-bit

CPU Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz 39 °C

RAM 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz (11-11-11-28)

Motherboard ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Z97-A (SOCKET 1150)

Graphics
M28U (3840x2160@60Hz)
DELL U2415 (1200x1920@59Hz)
Cintiq 16 (1920x1080@60Hz)

4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (Gigabyte) 😡

Power Seasonic M12II Bronze 520W 80Plus Power Supply

Storage
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 (SATA )
232GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB (SATA (SSD)
953GB Sabrent (Unknown (SSD)
465GB Samsung Portable SSD T5 SCSI Disk Device (USB (SATA) (SSD)
 
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Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Power Seasonic M12II Bronze 520W 80Plus Power Supply
First off, that's a bad quality PSU.

Second, have you tried seeing if the motherboard BIOS is pending an update? Use DDU in Safe Mode, remove all GPU drivers(intel, AMD and Nvidia) and then use the latest GPU driver sourced from Nvidia's support site in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator. Try using an older driver instead of the latest.
 
Hello everyone. My PC thinks I’m using at 970 but I have a 2060 installed.

My friend gave me his old GIGABYTE RTX 2060.

I powered down my PC and removed the 970 GPU and installed the 2060. I foolishly figured my PC and windows would auto detect the new GPU and just change a few settings around. At most I would have to update a driver or 2, right?

Well 11 hours later of deleting drivers, downloading drivers, getting a (this NVidia graphics driver is not compatible with your device… This graphics driver could not find the compatible graphics hardware.) message 20 times, deactivating devices, uninstalling GeForce Experience, booting into safe mode while disabling internet and using DDU to try a clean install (twice), I’m fresh out of ideas and I can’t seem to find any help with similar cases. I figured I would ask the pros.

Can someone please help me out?

The main issue I’m having is no matter what I try my PC thinks I have the 970 installed. Even when I finally got the NVidia driver 576.80 installed (supposedly) my Device Manager> Display Adapters says NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970. And under driver version its says 32.0.15.7680

Any help would be appreciated.

Operating System Windows 10 Home 64-bit

CPU Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.00GHz 39 °C

RAM 16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz (11-11-11-28)

Motherboard ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Z97-A (SOCKET 1150)

Graphics
M28U (3840x2160@60Hz)
DELL U2415 (1200x1920@59Hz)
Cintiq 16 (1920x1080@60Hz)

4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (Gigabyte) 😡

Power Seasonic M12II Bronze 520W 80Plus Power Supply

Storage
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 (SATA )
232GB Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB (SATA (SSD))
953GB Sabrent (Unknown (SSD))
465GB Samsung Portable SSD T5 SCSI Disk Device (USB (SATA) (SSD))

Had this issue with a 1060 had to do a full clean install as the drivers refused to be properly removed by ddu.

Make sure your windows email is linked to your windows licence this is so it reactivates. And back up all files on to a separate drive. If you don't have a usb with windows 10 on it or recover you can do the following below

Method 1: Reset Through Windows Settings
Open the Start menu and select Settings (gear icon)
Navigate to Update & Security > Recovery.
Under “Reset this PC,” click Get Started.
Choose between “Remove everything”
Select either “Cloud download” or “Local reinstall”
Review additional settings if presented.


Also make sure your bios is up to date as some older boards need a bios update from 2000 series onwards.
 
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When you are trying to update this does anything irregular go on during the install or restart process on the 2060 driver?

Check in Event Viewer and Reliability History and see if anything is being thrown about a failed driver install. What @Lutfij said above makes me wonder if it isn't failing to install the driver due to a "crash" of sorts during shutdown or the restart that isn't allowing the driver to install.
I assume here that when you run DDU the system goes back to the base graphics driver for a moment (and works) in between?
 
Gentleman. I have been betrayed.

It is in fact a 970 that looks like a 2060. I had to read the code printed on the circuitry.

The sticker that usually has a model number is just a nonsense barcode.

I just wanted to play Nightreign. lol
Thanks everyone.
 
Well... here are the requirements for Nightreign. Credit to This Website.
Elden Ring Nightreign's PC requirements are here to birth thee anew | Rock  Paper Shotgun

You can pick a GPU with this chart in mind to make sure you can play Nightreign.