5/6/7/8/9/200 Series Driver Trouble Shooting Guide

5/6/7/8/9/200 Series Trouble Shooting Guide for Drivers
Great Failsafe way when your Installing/Updating your video drivers

Ok first thing is go to Guru3d and get Driver Sweeper or Driver Cleaner Pro

"Never let microsoft windows update install your video drivers for XP/Vista for mobo and display drivers."

Driver Sweeper "installer"
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1655
Driver Sweeper "no install needed and this is what I use"
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1672

Driver Cleaner Pro
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

First open up your C drive and you should see the NVIDIA Directory "unless you told it to install some place else", now open up the folder named WinVista64 or 32 "depending on your os" and you should see a driver Ver. folder 162.22 for example Leave this window open.

Vista
1. Right click on Computer---->Properties
2. Click on Device Manager
3. Expand Dislpay Adapters
4. Right Mouse Button over the Video card Name
5. Select Uninstall, Click Delete the driver software for this Device
6. Do not reboot
7. Now That Window I told you to leave open with the NVIDIA directory now Delete your Driver Vershion Folder Example 162.22 then empty recycle bin.
8. REBOOT
9. Restart in Safe mode, Use the F8 key while your rebooting to do so select Safe Mode.
10. Now run Driver Sweeper or Driver Cleaner Pro, "I personally use the Driver Sweeper that you just run no install"
11. Make sure you tell it to Remove your NVIDIA Display Drivers, once it is finished
Reboot. once Vista reboots it will just reinstall a genaric VGA adapter dont worry, at least its not the nvidia one.
12. Now Install the latest Video Drivers for your card. Your safest bet are the ones on the EVGA support Site.

Driver Links
200 Series http://www.evga.com/200driver/
9 Series http://www.evga.com/9driver/
8 Series http://www.evga.com/8800driver/
5/6/7 Series http://www.evga.com/support/drivers/
PHYSICS DRIVERS/Software
http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_8.06.12_whql.html

13. Once it is finished installing REBOOT
14. Happy Gaming


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All Card series in the last Three Years Drivers From GURU3D 177.40
XP/Vista 32/64
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=265395
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Heat: If your video card is running way too hot you may want to get the EVGA Precision tool to rev up your fans. Also for Overclocking.
For EVGA Customers here is Precision, Great app for those of you who have not used it.
http://www.evga.com/articles/405.asp

Not an EVGA Customer get RivaTuner
http://downloads.guru3d.com/RivaTuner-v2.09-download-163.html
www.guru3d.com

If you have owned your card for awhile its cooling poorly and have not cleaned it... Check it for Dust Bunnies!!!
I would also like to say have the approved SLI case from nvidia, if your in sli or not... Also if you have 8 series cards and going SLI dont go with the cheaper sli cases your bottom card is going to get mad hot .... and cause all your temps to raise to unsafe temps for your gpus...

Say No to Ntune knowing is half the battle
This program will make your computer act up, funky, ect do not use it, its just like drugs just say no.... Trust me and alot of us here this will save you alot of time. So Say No to Ntune!!!

280 GTX Owners
If the fan for your north Bridge is blowing hot/warm air right into your 280 GTX you have a couple options, 1 is to take the fan off completely EVGA 680i owners should not have this problem due to the fan blowing away from the video card and up to the NB and cpu. But 780i/790i owners your fan blows straight into NB and the warm air into your video card.... You can take your fan off, or get a fan about the same size as the 680i NB, use some sticky foam or some small screws to mount it into place to suck the air away from your video card though the NB and exiting at an angle to the top of your case. A good 120mm Fan 93 CFM or so on the back of your case will be more than enough to help get that hot air out of your rig.
----------------------Keep your Cards Reved up with RivaTuner------------------
Planet Earth
In system settings (where u OC in RivaTuner) set the "force constant performance level" to "Performance 3D" if its greyed out go to the power user tab and under "RivaTuner\NVIDIA Overclocking" set "EnablePerfLevelForcing" to 1 then set the force constant performance level and restart I use version 2.09.

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Windows XP is basically the same proccess just follow the guide and it should be easy sailing.
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Also a Word of WARNING, this guide is for people who do not install all the bloat ware like ntune ect that come on your video card cd's on purchase. Some reported problems of the driver cleaning applications getting rid of the ntune software for raid, Lan drivers ect. Personally in my experience, do not use them, each time I buy a product esp EVGA I go to the EVGA web site and download all my drivers manually so I do not have to mess with nvidias disk installers and just get the drivers I want.
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This Guide can also be used as a trouble shooting guide if your card is having issues, following this will let you know if it is the drivers or not. Using this method will let you know if its your drivers that are giving you all your issues, BSOD's, Hard Locks, Random reboots. Doing the above has fixed many peoples issues including my own. Has Saved me from ripping my hair out of my head a few times.
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Something else to try: Check all the connections inside your rig, power cables, hard drive cables you name it, also check to make sure your hardware cpu, ram, video card are seated in correctly. Found out with the 780i board take the dominator ram cooler w/3 fans if you bump it hard enough it can make a stick of ram pop out of place on one side. If your having issues be sure to check for any loose connections in your rig.
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Helpful Hint: If your running a good GTS"G92", GT, GTX, Ultra.. Have 2 monitors plugged into one Card, running a X64 OS and your DX 9 and 10 games are not running as good like maxed out or closed to it. UNPLUG second monitor from your video card!!!! Makes a world of difference Trust me=) Not sure if this affects 9 series since I do not own one.
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SLI Running Slow?
This can be caused by a few things some times SLI does not like more than 2 gigs of ram, or you just need a bios update so try to keep every thing up to date. Also Make sure you have really good air flow, esp for the bottom card, if you dont the heat is just going to build up, cause poor performance and possibly start cooking your cards. So before you buy your second card for SLI check the nvidia site to make sure your getting an SLI Approved Case for your card series, but remember if your running cards that run hot make sure air can get in though the bottom of the case, CM Stacker 830, Antec 900 or any Case where the PSU is in the bottom of the case rocks as well just make sure its a quality case before buying.
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Getting the nvlddmkm error even after my driver guide? Check the voltages on your ram if your motherboard is auto configuring your ram it could be putting in the wrong voltage or timings, I would suggest you doing this manually, to the settings your ram is supposed to be running at in bios.

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Socket A Kings Guide for modifying bios for motherboards with incompatability with the 8800 GT possible solution.
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=180745&mpage=1&key=𯂺
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Other Issues with your GT with crashing ect check out this post.
http://www.evga.com/forums/fb.asp?m=194545
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RussianHaxor Guide for replacing Thermal Compound on 680i/650i Series boards for better cooling and longer life span. Prob works on the 750-790i series as well..
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=61145&mpage=1&key=
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Need a Cheap Easy GPU Cooler, works and gives you Some Head Room for OCing?
http://www.evga.com/forums/m.asp?m=397212
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More than 4gigs of ram in Vista Constant BSOD? This may help you out
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=173725&mpage=1&key=𪚝
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8800 GTS/GTX bios updates for Apple Cinima Displays" Thanks Jacob"
You can download them here: Wondering if there is an Ultra bios Fix.
ftp://ftp.evga.com/bios/N831.exe (8800GTX)
ftp://ftp.evga.com/bios/N821.exe (8800GTS)
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Nvidia Hotfixes for Vista if you do not have them already
http://www.nvidia.com/object/windows_vista_hotfixes.html

Why link to EVGA's drivers instead of the official NVIDIA ones?

Great guide!  I was curious if you could add a section for how ESA (basically Ntune-ish) fits into the mix for those that have it.  Also, if you have XFX cards would you head to XFX support or Nvidia for driver updates?

Thanks!

Driver sweeper is no longer available from Guru 3D.com.Is there something else I can use to update my video drivers that will remove all of my old drivers out of my system?

http://phyxion.net/new site for driver sweeper

RS, this thread is from 2008, lot of things have changed since then.

if you want to do a fresh install, just uninstall your drivers, then go to safemode and run driver sweeper and ask it to get rid of anything gpu related, then reboot to desktop and install new drivers and check the box for fresh install.

Yes, there are a lot of threads like this on the forums, that while helpful, are very outdated. I wonder if there are any plans to update any of them?

Edited by Tidgxor - 03 Feb 2012 at 12:03pm