Safest way to upgrade to a new video card ?

[SciPunk]

I'm pulling out an MSI FX7600GT and putting in a new EVGA e-GeForce7900GS KO.

Pulling to old one out and popping the new one in is easy enough, but what happens when I boot my computer?

How exactly do I remove the old drivers and install the new ones?
Should I do this BEFORE I remove the old card or AFTER I put in the new one?
What could go wrong here that I should be careful to avoid???

 

[JohnWeldt]

Remove the drivers in safe mode. The Nvidia should have utilities to do this.

Install the new card and install the drivers.

Then play games for 16 hours straight to break in the card.

 

[IcY18]

Remove the drivers in safe mode. The Nvidia should have utilities to do this.

Install the new card and install the drivers.

Then play games for 16 hours straight to break in the card.

disclaimer: that isn't required :lol:

 

[purdueguy]

Question: Are you using MSI's drivers or Nvidia's? This would make a difference in my following statement.

If you have installed Nvidia's drivers, you shouldn't have to do anything as both cards use Nvidia chips. I went from a Leadtek GeForce MX 440 to a PNY 6600GT last year. I shut down the computer, pulled the power cord from the outlet, removed the old card and popped in the new one.

The computer detected my new card with no problems. I did go to Nvidia's website afterwards to download the latest driver as I hadn't done so in awhile.

Now, if it was going from one manufacturers driver to another, then I'd recommend removing the old driver first so it boots up in Safe Mode and then subsequently install the new driver.

 

[kaotao]

uninstall old drivers first. Go to "Add/Remove Programs" click on Nvidia Windows Display Drivers, or Nvidia Display Drivers, and click remove. Then, remove old card, install new card, turn on computer, and install the new drivers.

 

[kaotao]

Question: Are you using MSI's drivers or Nvidia's? This would make a difference in my following statement.

If you have installed Nvidia's drivers, you shouldn't have to do anything as both cards use Nvidia chips. I went from a Leadtek GeForce MX 440 to a PNY 6600GT last year. I shut down the computer, pulled the power cord from the outlet, removed the old card and popped in the new one.

The computer detected my new card with no problems. I did go to Nvidia's website afterwards to download the latest driver as I hadn't done so in awhile.

Now, if it was going from one manufacturers driver to another, then I'd recommend removing the old driver first so it boots up in Safe Mode and then subsequently install the new driver.

It doesn't always go that smoothly going from one Nvidia card to the next. Same with ATI. It's best to uninstall ALL old drivers first...

 

[angry_ducky]

Remove the drivers in safe mode. The Nvidia should have utilities to do this.

Install the new card and install the drivers.

Then play games for 16 hours straight to break in the card.

disclaimer: that isn't required :lol:

That doesn't mean that it's not a good way to break in the card. Of course, you could always set 3DMark to loop for a couple of hours.

 

[SciPunk]

Thanks kaotao, that's exactly what I was looking for.

purdueguy, it's hard to tell what drivers I have. I used the CD that came w/ the card. MSI has Liveupdate and it shows my video driver version as "unknown". But it said that for several of my drivers until I updated them w/ Liveupdate.

But every time I tried to use it to get new video drivers, it offers me a list of five different cards... none of which are mine. Each time I try to install one from that list the NVIDIA intaller tells me that it can't find any hardware compatible w/ that driver.

It's pretty frustrating when the manufacturer's update software can't identify the hardware they sold you !!!

 

[purdueguy]

Guess I was lucky when I upgraded my card. I took a chance and it worked. From what you've said, then I agree with everyone else. Definitely remove the old driver, install new card and then reinstall new driver. I'd just go to Nvidia's website and download the driver from there. Nvidia Drivers

 

[purdueguy]

Guess I was lucky when I upgraded my card. I took a chance and it worked. From what you've said, then I agree with everyone else. Definitely remove the old driver, install new card and then reinstall new driver. I'd just go to Nvidia's website and download the driver from there. Nvidia Drivers

 

[baracuda73]

Can also use drivercleaner to clean out the old drivers. just goole it, dl and remove then power off,swap cards and install newest driver from nvidia.