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Cleaning drivers, yes or no?

sastusbulbas

sastusbulbas

sastusbulbas

Associate
Joined
26 May 2008
Posts
2,057
Hi all,

Not had a new GPU since the HD5750 came out, and even then I have usually put GPU's in new builds not usually old machines.

Now I seem to remember conflicting reports about upgrading graphics cards regarding drivers.

Some say you have to remove old drivers, some say you need to use third party software, some say they have never had to or ever experienced an issue, and I seem to remember someone referring to AMD stating you should not use any sort of driver cleaner?

So what is the official deal, do I need to remove drivers with third party software?
 
No, both AMD and Nvidia remove/clean older drivers as part of the new driver installation process. Have been installing straight over for many years now and never had an issue with this with both manufacturers. If you really want to be sure, you can uninstall drivers via add/remove programs in windows, before installing the new ones, but it really is not required.

Only use third part driver cleaners or other cleaning methods if the above does not work properly and these alternative methods are known to solve your problem.
 
Driver cleaners cause more harm than good from my experience. With nvidia just click the clean install option and with AMD just uninstall the old ones before installing new ones. Over the top works fine though.
 
Yeah same. I remember years ago being advised to uninstall drivers and then clean prior to re installing new drivers, but haven't bothered with this since maybe 2008 without issue.
 
Guess it depends.

Had a 4870 and replaced it with a 7950 and installed drives on top and performance was really low. Decided to remove old drivers manually and reinstall new drivers again and performance was what it should have been
 
You only need a driver cleaner if you're experiencing problems. For the majority of people, its just not needed.

You should always uninstall old AMD drivers before installing new ones. Confirmed by the AMD rep as the best method. :)
 
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