Troubleshooting NVIDIA Driver Issues

Troubles with drivers on Windows systems are par for the course when using the latest GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) product released on the market. Both Nvidia and AMD usually manage to iron out the most severe bug in a reasonable time, but what should users do in the meantime?

The reason for the particular issue may be corrupted driver files, internal glitches, and bugs in the driver package, or interference between drivers for different devices. The best way to deal with this type of problem is to remove the current driver completely and then make a fresh install.

The first step is removing the old driver. As drivers are essential in ensuring the proper and continuous communication between the hardware components and the software applications that need them, they are sometimes ingrained pretty deep into the operating system. That is why the best way to remove them is through an application designed for that task specifically. When it comes to GPU drivers, one such option is the Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) application. Download the application, execute it, select the appropriate options and let it clean your system from every trace of the current video driver.

One manual method that could achieve similar results is to open Device Manager by typing device manager in the search box on the taskbar. Navigate to your GPU, where you may need to expand the 'Display adapters' section by clicking the node icon in front of it. Right-click the GPU and select 'Uninstall device' from the available options. When you restart your computer, Windows should install a default driver for the device.

Now, go to the official website for your specific GPU and download the last stable driver version that was running on your system. Start the installer and follow the instructions.

Hopefully, this should have resolved your GPU driver issue.