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Upgrading ATI to nVidia - remove drivers?

S

sphinx99

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 23, 2006
Messages
1,191
Have: Radeon 4850, bought cheap and used, experiencing some display corruption and other symptoms of burnout.

Got: GTX 580.

Should I simply swap in the new card, let Windows do its thing, then install the latest and greatest drivers? OS is W7 x64. Advice appreciated!
 
"remove drivers?"
YES!
lol

Remove ATi software/drivers using the ATi uninstaller, get rid of all the software/drivers completely.
Reboot into Safe Mode. Run DriverSweeper. Uninstall the card from Device Manager (choose to remove the driver from that too when it prompts you).
Power off, install new card, power up, install new drivers.
 
Or

download all your drivers and save them to an external drive, and reinstall the OS :p I always do a fresh reformat when I get a new piece of hardware.
 
I recently upgraded from an 8800GT to a 6870. You're damn straight that I re-installed the OS.
 
Hostile said:
I recently upgraded from an 8800GT to a 6870. You're damn straight that I re-installed the OS.
Click to expand...

And then what? Do you restore your drive with an imaged backup?

I don't understand people who reinstall their entire OS just for a piece of hardware. It took me hours to tweak all the programs and games I have installed to run just the way I want them and there's no fucking way I would reinstall my OS if I didn't have Acronis.
 
Matrices said:
And then what? Do you restore your drive with an imaged backup?

I don't understand people who reinstall their entire OS just for a piece of hardware. It took me hours to tweak all the programs and games I have installed to run just the way I want them and there's no fucking way I would reinstall my OS if I didn't have Acronis.
Click to expand...

No, I install from scratch. It takes 20 minutes with 64-bit Win7. :rolleyes:

Video drivers in particular are extremely invasive in the operating system mixing them is never a good idea.

Why would you want software and drivers for hardware installed that you no longer need?

Example- You just replaced your motherboard. Great, but your image still has 10+ drivers for hardware that are no longer needed and 9 times out of 10 the image won't even boot because there is too much hardware that the OS is trying to locate that is not there. You might get lucky, but you still have a muddled registry.
 
I've had "transient issues" every time I've changed out either the MB or the video card from one brand to the other without reinstalling the OS from scratch. It seems to always make them disappear. Changing to a bigger HD or changing out memory I leave it as is since there aren't drivers hanging in limbo for the old hardware.
 
Hostile said:
No, I install from scratch. It takes 20 minutes with 64-bit Win7. :rolleyes:

Video drivers in particular are extremely invasive in the operating system mixing them is never a good idea.

Why would you want software and drivers for hardware installed that you no longer need?

Example- You just replaced your motherboard. Great, but your image still has 10+ drivers for hardware that are no longer needed and 9 times out of 10 the image won't even boot because there is too much hardware that the OS is trying to locate that is not there. You might get lucky, but you still have a muddled registry.
Click to expand...

When you reinstall the OS without then restoring an image, you've just lost all your custom settings for all your games, shortcuts, software, desktop, etc., that you've probably been tweaking over weeks if not months. I don't know how much free time you have but I'd prefer not to spend mine doing tedious things.

If you are installing a new motherboard with a new chipset, it makes sense to do it if you have to. But I don't see why it is necessary for changing video card vendors. Is it so bad that just running Driver Sweep doesn't work? People should get on them and insist they unfuck their uninstallation process then. Uninstallation should do just that, uninstall.
 
I recently went from 5870 crossfire to a GTX 580. All I did was uninstall the driver via the ATI uninstaller, swapped the old cards with the new, and installed the latest Nvidia driver. I haven't encountered any problems so far. That being said I might do a fresh install anyways just because I'm paranoid. My board has an AMD chipset, and I'm not sure if the ATI uninstaller might have uninstalled other non video related ATI drivers as well.
 
Matrices said:
When you reinstall the OS without then restoring an image, you've just lost all your custom settings for all your games, shortcuts, software, desktop, etc., that you've probably been tweaking over weeks if not months. I don't know how much free time you have but I'd prefer not to spend mine doing tedious things.
Click to expand...

All that takes me maybe 30 minutes. I don't keep anything important on my computer, anything worth saving is on my server.

The only local apps I worry about are WoWarcraft (I just copy my WoW directory off the computer) and the rest of my games are all in Steam. With Steam I just backup the games I play frequently to an external drive and then restore them to my machine.

For other apps, I just install them as I need it. I find that I generally end up not needing certain applications that I had downloaded at one point previously so I end up with less clutter.

Matrices said:
If you are installing a new motherboard with a new chipset, it makes sense to do it if you have to. But I don't see why it is necessary for changing video card vendors. Is it so bad that just running Driver Sweep doesn't work? People should get on them and insist they unfuck their uninstallation process then. Uninstallation should do just that, uninstall.
Click to expand...

What the vendors should be doing is irrelevant to the reality.
 
no need for driver sweeper or anything drastic like that

Reinstalling the OS is decade old advice (Lol at the WinXP or Win98SE advice)

just uninstall the old drivers, shutdown, remove hardware, install new hardware, install the new drivers when the comp boots up.
 
Hostile said:
When Microsoft releases an operating system that does not rely on a system registry then it may not become necessary.
Click to expand...

Sorry, add a CCleaner run to my recommendation. :rolleyes:

No need at all to format/reinstall with Win7. If anything, Vista/Win7 get better with age, unlike 9x/XP.
/anecdote
Unless you've had serious driver issues with your current OS install, that is.

Also, you may be able to reinstall Win7 and configure it to your liking with in an hour, but that is certainly not true for many of us.
 
Hostile said:
Case in point - http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1572768

OP uninstalled drivers and ran registry cleaner. He can't even install newer ATI drivers cleanly in place of old ATi drivers, much less swapping brands altogether.
Click to expand...

Right... you clean install when you have problems that can't be resolved otherwise.
There is no need to clean install if you're not experiencing issues.

Just be smart about your installs from the get-go, and you shouldn't have issues.
Clean installing under the paranoia of issues when you go to new hardware is just silly.
 
WhiteZero said:
Right... you clean install when you have problems that can't be resolved otherwise.
There is no need to clean install if you're not experiencing issues.

Just be smart about your installs from the get-go, and you shouldn't have issues.
Clean installing under the paranoia of issues when you go to new hardware is just silly.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? Who is paranoid in that thread? CCC and GPU-Z are showing wrong version numbers for multiple people who followed the same advice you are giving in this thread...
 
Hostile said:
What are you talking about? Who is paranoid in that thread? CCC and GPU-Z are showing wrong version numbers for multiple people who followed the same advice you are giving in this thread...
Click to expand...

-headdesk-

You linked to a thread where someone is having existing problems with drivers to refute the argument that a clean install is not necessary when changing hardware?
The thread you linked is irrelevant to the question at hand.
Are you following the topic here?

The OP has no existing driver issues. It should not be assumed that the default course of action is to nuke your PC to ensure a good migration to new hardware.

I just went from ATi to nVidia following my suggested actions and have had 0 issues.

Hostile said:
Funny since my fresh of Win7 that I just installed this past weekend is plainly running snappier and is more responsive than the year old install I just wiped out.
Click to expand...
What are the chances that something not related to drivers or system files has something to do with that?
e.g.: Fragmentation, startup items, security software difference, services, running processes, malware, etc
There are so many variables to consider.

Yeah, maybe Win7 doesn't literally get better with age, but it certainly doesn't murder itself with age like XP did.
 
Last edited:
1. Uninstall old driver
2. Shut down
3. Take out old hardware and plug in new hardware
4. Boot up and install new driver

Don't believe the crazies who think you need to reinstall your OS or run various sweeper utilities. They're *not necessary*.

Let's just say that over the last few years I've swapped back and forth literally thousands of times, just like this, without issues.

AMD drivers will never reference NVIDIA driver files and vice versa. Just getting this in before someone goes OMFG BUT DRIVER "CONFLICT". No such thing. It's not even a technical term.
 
BlueStorm said:
1. Uninstall old driver
2. Shut down
3. Take out old hardware and plug in new hardware
4. Boot up and install new driver

Don't believe the crazies who think you need to reinstall your OS or run various sweeper utilities. They're *not necessary*.

Let's just say that over the last few years I've swapped back and forth literally thousands of times, just like this, without issues.

AMD drivers will never reference NVIDIA driver files and vice versa. Just getting this in before someone goes OMFG BUT DRIVER "CONFLICT". No such thing. It's not even a technical term.
Click to expand...

Even running the ATi uninstaller doesn't remove everything related to AMD/ATi drivers. Driver Sweeper proves this.
Though, I don't think it is definitive if having remanence like this can actually cause issues. But it's a pretty easy precaution to take.
 
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