WARNING: To those with Nvidia GPU’s

[CurtisOliver]

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to put a serious warning out there to any about to update their nvidia drivers. I went to update mine like normal and it failed. I then proceeded to try again and it worked. Then the real fun began. I’ve gone from having no GPU stats, to getting the stats back, to countless bsod’s. And now not being able to use my laptop at all. Luckily I got my computer working long enough to transfer some important files of mine onto a hard drive. I tried a system restore to go back to when the problematic driver was installed. But a bsod got in the way of it completing. Now I can’t even factory reset etc. Absolutely nothing is working to fix my pc. Important files have suddenly disappeared that are behind the os itself. Problem after problem. Now I have to go and get my laptop wiped completely and windows reinstalled. All caused by trying to update a autonomous graphics driver. Thanks a million Nvidia. I have updated my driver many times before, they always made me nervous but never had any problems. It is highly likely you won’t either. Just make sure you back up everything beforehand just in case.

 

[paul1598419]

Damn! Thanks for the heads up, Curtis. That sounds awful.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Well I’m pretty annoyed tbh putting it nicely. One thing I need more then ever right now is that trusty workhorse of a laptop. I’ve had a commission which I need to work on and now can’t.

No problem. Don’t want to hear of anyone else having that problem.

 

[brendon7358]

What Gpu do you have? Are you sure your hdd isn't failing and just happened to do it when you were updating the GPU drivers (causing them to become currupt) ? Assuming your Cpu has an integrated Gpu is there a way to force your computer to use the integrated Gpu rather than the dedicated ones? Then you could completely Uninstall the drivers and reinstall.

Edit: sorry for the random uppercase words, phone is being stupid

 

[CurtisOliver]

I have a GTX1080 and both my ssd and hdd drive is fine. Thanks for the suggestion though. Before the computer was in the state it is now, I did get the driver to install correctly and get the gpu recognised again. But the bsod’s continued and computer deteriorated from there on. Now I can’t even boot the computer without going to the windows re which is useless as none of the options work for me.

 

[FireMyLaser]

Next time, you should try if you can boot in safe mode with networking and uninstall the graphics driver with DDU.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Right ok. Thanks! I’ve heard ddu mentioned before. But I’ve never had issues with a upgrade before. Well I won’t take any chances now. Once I put win 10 back on, I’m going to have to put the Nvidia driver back on which I’m rather nervous about.

 

[FireMyLaser]

You wont have issues with automatic updates if you don't install Geforce Experience, or stop it on startup. Just get a driver you know that works.

 

[CurtisOliver]

I had GeForce automatically on my laptop. If I do a fresh install of the os then, I should then be able download and install the driver like normal without problems. I hope.
So you believe that GeForce is part of the problem?

 

[FireMyLaser]

I'm guessing the latest driver is fine, just something got botched up while updating. S**t happens. Read on the Nvidia forums and see if others report issues though.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Will do. Thanks.

 

[Elyekim]

I believe you could also take out the hard drive if you really had to get to your important files. If that infected computer won't let you in, you could connect the hard drive to another computer and extract your files from there. If you don't have any other computer, perhaps you could buy a cheap hard drive, then wiping the entire computer. Then you could put the old hard drive back and boot the computer.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Luckily the important files I got hold of before it deteriorated. But thanks. My laptop needs starting a fresh. All recovery options fail.

 

[Elyekim]

This may be obvious, but make sure you have a backup image of the freshly reset computer. If there's any issue at all... you always have that image to go back to and you won't lose your files.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Will do. Got a new external hard drive for that reason.

 

[Immo1282]

There's nothing in the latest driver that BSOD'd me when I installed it manually the other day but GeForce Experience is an un-necessary piece of bloat that could well have messed up the install.


the problem is consigned to that old install of W10 and doesn't return. All the best Curtis.