Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: TDeacon on April 02, 2017, 09:55:10 PM
-
I need to update my Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 drivers to a slightly newer version, i.e. 378.66, in a Windows 7 installation.
I vaguely recall that before doing this it's best to "clean" out old drivers. Can anyone recommend a safe (no malware, and works correctly) way to do this? Also, is there a recommended place to get new Nvidia drivers, since their website doesn't seem to support https (...).
Thanks in advance,
Mark H.
-
http://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=776 (http://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=776) is the official site for Display Driver Uninstaller.
The best place to download Nvidia drivers would be http://www.geforce.com/drivers (http://www.geforce.com/drivers). Agreed, it doesn't support https, but then again why should it? They don't ask for any delicate information about you. No passwords, credit card info or anything that would compromise your security. Actually, this forum is more vulnerable since the login screen is not secured. Or am I missing something?
-
Thanks for the quick reply. :)
http://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=776 (http://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=776) is the official site for Display Driver Uninstaller.
(text removed)
Agreed, it doesn't support https, but then again why should it? They don't ask for any delicate information about you. No passwords, credit card info or anything that would compromise your security. Actually, this forum is more vulnerable since the login screen is not secured. Or am I missing something?
You're missing something, I think. https uses a protocol called TLS, which among other things authenticates the remote peer via an X.509 certificate. So theoretically, without TLS, there is the possibility that you could be connected to something claiming to be Nvidia, but which is actually not them. So if it's not them, what you download is potentially malware.
Mark H.
-
What I have learned is that you should not blindly rely on links but rather type the addresses on the address bar and double check for typos before clicking Enter. If you end up on a fake site after these precautions, your computer security has already failed.
That said, the links I posted are those I use. I did a Google search for DDU because I never can remember the exact address for WagnardSoft. For Nvidia I simply typed www.nvidia.com because I know it's the right address for them. As you know, this kind of forums allow for adding hyperlinks to any kind of phrases (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,386313.0.html) including www.thisverythread.omg (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,386313.0.html). If in doubt, right click the link, Copy Link Location and paste it somewhere where you can read the true address it links to. If it looks fishy, it might well be.
I've had my share of fake e-mails claiming to be from my ISP, bank or whatever. Some are very easy to identify since the returning address is something like john.smith@company.com. Some have taken a step further by using addresses like yourbank@gmail.com. Common sense should tell that no big bank or ISP or other major company would ever use any free e-mail for their support messages. But we all are human, even those who know better are prone to make errors when tired, busy, stressed etc.
I know what you mean by downloading potential malware. It has happened a few times that I've clicked a wrong "Download" button on an add loaded site. It pays to read the name of the file to be downloaded and re-read it before starting the installing procedure.
-
Why not just use the windows uninstaller? It's worked fine for me forever.
As to the new drivers go to NVidia or your card manufacturer's web-site. Manufacturers are sometimes a step behind. If you're worried about security at either of these sites then, well, you aren't going to get the drivers so don't uninstall the one's you have.
Or, you could use GForce Experience to delete the old drivers, download the new ones and install them. Select clean install. I've been using it on my laptop for about two years with no issues.
-
Windows uninstaller does a decent job especially when both the old and new drivers are for the same card and have worked flawlessly. However, it leaves some residue behind. I recently got a GTX970 for which I installed the latest drivers. They caused blue screens right at boot. It took me several trials before I found one that seems to be stable. In that situation I didn't want to have any of the problematic stuff left in my system.
As for http/https driver sites, I'd rather take a risk by using http://nvidia.com than https://harryhackersdriverpool.omg. There's plenty of fully legitimate crapware out there and their sites can be certified as well. Not all malware is meant to be harmful, they're just sloppily coded for making easy money fast, leaving security holes for the really nasty stuff to get in.
-
Well that didn't work too well. DDU advises to run it in Win7 Safe Mode, so I do (with networking). Then I try to run the previously-downloaded Nvidia driver package (378.66 Win7 64 bit for GeForce 1070), but get an 7-zip error. Get this error even when I download it again (from the Nvida site both times). Get this error even when I download it again from Linux, and run it from a memory stick drive. So I figure, maybe the Nvidia driver installer doesn't work in Safe Mode, so I reboot windows Normally. Running Nvidia driver package generates same error. At this point considering using my pre-DDU Win7 Restore Point, but that doesn't get me anywhere with my desired Nvida driver upgrade, even if the Restore Point works cleanly ...
Very disgruntled at this point... Posting issue to Nvidia and DDU websites and using Linux in meantime.
MH
EDIT: WAS subsequently able to install the previous Nvida driver install package "378.49-desktop-win8-win7-64bit-international-whql.exe". So the 378.66 one is apparently corrupt.
-
Run DDU in safe mode--you don't need networking. Run it and reboot normally. Install the new nvidia drivers.
The drivers won't work in safe mode as safe mode doesn't load the drivers.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
-
Run DDU in safe mode--you don't need networking. Run it and reboot normally. Install the new nvidia drivers.
The drivers won't work in safe mode as safe mode doesn't load the drivers.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
You do need networking, as it checks for updates before "cleaning". In the end, what you describe above is what I did (plus "with networking"), but due the corrupted 378.66 I installed the earlier 378.49. (Note my EDIT to previous post).
Mark H.
-
Actually, you don't need networking. DDU asks if you'd like to check for updates but since you've just downloaded the latest version there's no need for that. The default option is "Clean and reboot" which should take you back to normal Windows in VGA mode since you don't have any dedicated drivers installed. As you noticed Windows Installer doesn't work in Safe Mode. It's not a Nvidia specific feature.
There's several potential reasons for a corrupted driver. Google Chrome is known to corrupt at least AH3 downloads. Anti-virus programs may find a false positive or simply garble the download while checking it. Even Windows itself may refuse to install some drivers if a certain update is missing - something I learned today.
-
You do need networking, as it checks for updates before "cleaning". In the end, what you describe above is what I did (plus "with networking"), but due the corrupted 378.66 I installed the earlier 378.49. (Note my EDIT to previous post).
Mark H.
You're just doing it wrong. The reason for running DDU in safe mode is that in safe mode only a minimum of drivers are loaded up. That way DDU can "clean" the files as they aren't in use. It literally wouldn't work in regular mode. The safe mode step is JUST for the DDU step---NOT for installing the drivers! Clean and reboot back into normal mode. NOW you can install the drivers.
The reason you think they're "corrupted" is that they won't install in safe mode. They won't load up and won't find the card in safe mode.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
-
You're just doing it wrong. The reason for running DDU in safe mode is that in safe mode only a minimum of drivers are loaded up. That way DDU can "clean" the files as they aren't in use. It literally wouldn't work in regular mode. The safe mode step is JUST for the DDU step---NOT for installing the drivers! Clean and reboot back into normal mode. NOW you can install the drivers.
The reason you think they're "corrupted" is that they won't install in safe mode. They won't load up and won't find the card in safe mode.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
Again:
1) I ran DDU in safe mode with networking, as that's what they recommend. When you do this, you can see it check for updates.
2) I ran the Nvidia driver installers in normal mode, not safe mode.
3) The 378.66 installer was corrupted. The installer ran in Win7 normal mode, started to unzip, and about 15% of the way through gave a 7-zip error.
4) The 378.49 installer was not corrupted. The installer ran in Win7 normal mode, started and finished upzipping, displayed the installer UI, and behaved correctly until "finish".
I believe I conveyed this info previously, but perhaps it is hard to read on a mobile device, especially with my EDIT change to the earlier post.
Mark H.
-
(text removed)
There's several potential reasons for a corrupted driver. Google Chrome is known to corrupt at least AH3 downloads. Anti-virus programs may find a false positive or simply garble the download while checking it. Even Windows itself may refuse to install some drivers if a certain update is missing - something I learned today.
I posted a question on the Nvidia forums, where someone mentioned something like this (he blamed my ISP). I responded with a query as to any ideas as to a work-around. I am also going to phone Nvidia, FWIW. 378.66 is what Star Citizen currently uses, and you don't want to post bug fixes for an Alpha build if you aren't using the correct driver version. BTW, there are 1.7 million backers for that game, and presumably a lot of them are alpha testing, using Nvidia GPUS ...
I used Firefox, both on Linux Mint and on Windows 7, ran the 378.66 installer from both sources, with the same results.
For now, I'm using 378.49, and hope that RSI/CIG will move up supporting a newer set of Nvidia drivers. Probably not their highest priority right now, though...
MH
-
Again:
1) I ran DDU in safe mode with networking, as that's what they recommend. When you do this, you can see it check for updates.
2) I ran the Nvidia driver installers in normal mode, not safe mode.
3) The 378.66 installer was corrupted. The installer ran in Win7 normal mode, started to unzip, and about 15% of the way through gave a 7-zip error.
4) The 378.49 installer was not corrupted. The installer ran in Win7 normal mode, started and finished upzipping, displayed the installer UI, and behaved correctly until "finish".
I believe I conveyed this info previously, but perhaps it is hard to read on a mobile device, especially with my EDIT change to the earlier post.
Mark H.
OK if you come here asking for advice I'm guessing it's because you don't know something so if people are trying to help you out maybe try following their advice? You've been told not to use safe mode with networking but you insist on it. So there's that. Maybe stop trying that would be a good start. We've actually done this a few times.
You keep saying that your downloads are corrupt. So maybe---try downloading again? I'm guessing from your first post that you have your AV set to paranoid mode and you've been told that may be a problem too. Try turning it off for a sec and downloading the file again from NVidia. Take a breath. It's gonna be OK. People download drivers from them all day every day and if that was gonna be a problem it'd be global internet news of epic proportions. Believe me you'd know!
You're saying you're getting a winzip error? I don't understand. What is this unzipping? I don't get a zip file from NVidia, only an executable. If you're downloading a zip from somewhere and trying to install that directly that isn't gonna work either. If it IS a zip file then try unzipping the zip into a folder that you can find before you do anything else. There should be an executable in that folder. When you go to install, double click on that and it should work.
You say it acts normally until it says "finish". OK so what does that mean?
FWIW, I've recently gone from an ATI card to an NVida card, used DDU going from one brand to the other and have updated my drivers to the current 378.92s without issue. I'm not using DDU on every driver change as I asked here if I should continue doing that as I did with the ATI cards and was told I don't have to. So I listened to people like Biz. But what do I know.
Just trying to help ya bud.
-
Yep... Nvidia seems to have driver issues every now and then. Not everyone suffers from them so I suppose it may be due to incompatibility with some systems. As you know, there's a gazillion of hardware combinations out there. I've heard about a company in Redmond suffering from the same... As I told, my GTX970 refused to work with the latest couple of drivers. Or rather, my system refused to work with them. 372.90 has worked so far, I'm hesitant to try newer ones...
-
Had same problem with latest NVidia driver had to rollback to previous.
Annoying and time consuming.
-
So there ya go! Maybe they have do a problem, Houston! But I'm at .92. <shrug> Running a 1060 tho.
-
Got brief message 7zip failure while unpacking files so installation program never ran. Tried 2x same result.
-
I just updated to 375.95 and flew an offline sortie without issues. My main reason to update was fan noise: Even simple websites made the GPU fans spin at an audible level. The ones I chose were among the oldest suggested drivers on the Geforce site. I chose them because they were the latest of the 375.## series, naively suggesting that they would be the best ones of that series. Fully matured, so to say. Supposing Nvidia follows the standard numbering rules, the numbers before the dot are indicating a generation change, new features and other major changes whereas the digits after the dot would tell the level of patches made. However, I'm not sure if they ever finalize one driver series before launching a new one...
-
Update: It was proofed again that not all Nvidia drivers work the same. After the update I started to occasional get freezes when a new program starts, followed with a "display driver stopped responding" message. If I only knew which drivers worked best with the rest of my system since I believe that even the latest drivers still would be fully compatible with the 970.
For what I've read it might also be a PSU issue.
Annoying and time consuming indeed.
-
And yet another update: I now can confirm that the latest Nvidia drivers, 381.65, may have issues. I got the aforementioned 7-zip error, too. 368.80 seem to work for me so far, tomorrow may tell otherwise.
-
I'm reading that this driver was "Optimized" for the Win 10 Creators update, I wonder if that has something to do with the issues, a whole host of issues in both the Nvidia and GeForce forums
-
OK if you come here asking for advice I'm guessing it's because you don't know something so if people are trying to help you out maybe try following their advice?
(text removed)
Drano,
I welcome informed answers to any question I post on these Forums, such as Bizman's. But when a response clearly indicates that (for whatever reason) the respondent mis-read my previous posts, all I can do is point this out. No big deal; we all mis-read things on occasion.
Got brief message 7zip failure while unpacking files so installation program never ran. Tried 2x same result.
Essentially, this is what occurred with 378.66. I interpreted the 7-zip incident as a preliminary stage in the "running" of the installer, as it occurred after I invoked the exe file. But as you imply the "main portion" of the installer never ran. In such a case, there's not much I can do, unless I can convince Nvidia to fix the installer. I am distressed that you guys are reported at least 2 additional incidents of this, though. EDIT: Checked the Nvidia forums and this is a not-uncommon issue.
I'm reading that this driver was "Optimized" for the Win 10 Creators update, I wonder if that has something to do with the issues, a whole host of issues in both the Nvidia and GeForce forums
In the case of my OP, I was downloading the installer released for Win7 and Win8. The Win10 version is a separate file.
Mark H.
-
Update: It was proofed again that not all Nvidia drivers work the same. After the update I started to occasional get freezes when a new program starts, followed with a "display driver stopped responding" message. If I only knew which drivers worked best with the rest of my system since I believe that even the latest drivers still would be fully compatible with the 970.
For what I've read it might also be a PSU issue.
Annoying and time consuming indeed.
Here's a thought. Recall how you are supposed to install drivers in a specific order on a new system (something to do with interrupts?). I wonder if using a driver cleaner and then reinstalling just video somehow affects this.
MH
-
The nvidia driver that failed for me was 378.92.
A newer version 381.65 was released yesterday. Haven't tried to install 381.65 yet.
-
Here's a thought. Recall how you are supposed to install drivers in a specific order on a new system (something to do with interrupts?). I wonder if using a driver cleaner and then reinstalling just video somehow affects this.
MH
If that were the case we would not be able to change from AMD to Nvidia or vice versa without reinstalling Windows. Also, wouldn't that affect all driver versions and not the latest ones? I've done the installing both using DDU and not using it, the newer drivers seem to give me "stopped responding" issues no matter how I install them.
-
From the release notes of the newest 381.65 drivers.
Windows 10 Issues
[GeForce Experience]: Driver installation may fail when attempting to perform a
driver overinstall.
To workaround, perform a clean installation.
So there ya go. Involves rebuilding any profiles you've made for your apps but there's the way around it. Well..... Hehe.... Maybe!
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
-
Well, for what it's worth, on my Win7 system I have done a clean install every time. Plus I installed the graphics drivers only, no extra features. I don't use them.
Now that I remembered it, I also disabled the High Definition Audio of the card in Device Manager. It had the native Windows drivers automatically installed.
-
On 378.92 with no issues. Won't go up to new driver until I hear more good news....previous driver caused my mp4 video play to shat the bed.
-
On 378.92 with no issues. Won't go up to new driver until I hear more good news....previous driver caused my mp4 video play to shat the bed.
Same driver version. I've noticed my video capture quality has suffered drastically at similar bit rates that I've used in the past. I can still get a good quality output but only at much higher bit rates with correspondingly larger files. Much higher being no less than 12kb vs 4 before.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
-
Man... i use shadowplay and have mine at max setting (and yes files are huge!):)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk