How best to uninstall remove my AMD GPU before fitting my Nvidia GPU?

[Kaapstad]

I see nobody has asked the critical question, what operating system are you using?

Assuming it is windows, which version?



If using Windows 10 then personally I would follow this advice.






If you are using Windows 7 then I would follow this advice, with one change, I would take the old card out after the clean and shut down and before the once you've rebooted, unless you like fan cut fingers, possible sparks and a most certain windows crash that will quite possibly lead to a reinstall.

If you are running Win 10 you definitely want to run DDU when switching between AMD and NVidia.

I had Win10 wanting to download AMD stuff the other week when the PC was running some GTX 1080s. I think if I had run DDU after removing the drivers I would not have had the problem.

 

[~>Dg<~]

You should double check with someone like AMDMatt (the Red Baron) then as it can cause you problems that only a windows reinstall will fix.

DDU can cause more issues than a simple uninstall can.

 

[jupiter_man]

DDU is the KING
always use it whenever you need to change / update your driver

 

[Kaapstad]

DDU can cause more issues than a simple uninstall can.

Only use it when you have uninstalled the drivers first to avoid problems.

 

[opethdisciple]

1. Uninstall the AMD drivers via Add/Remove programs
2. Shutdown, and swap cards
3. Install NVIDIA drivers

Not sure why there is any need for "black magic" or 3rd party utilities these days - DDU is a throwback to when both NVIDIA and AMD drivers weren't as well behaved and didn't always cleanly remove themselves.

These days though Drivers from both parties are so well behaved you can have a graphics card from each party installed with no driver issues.

This!

Why on earth do you want to use a third party application to do something that is in reality very very simple.

Using DDU is introducing exactly what the OP fears.

NEVER use DDU unless you have a specific reason to use it. IE, you've got some driver corruption going on and have tried all the usual means to rectify the problem and now need to turn to creative ways to solve the problem.

DDU will CAUSE you problems other wise.

Basically unless it's a tool form AMD/Nvidia I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

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I would add before step 2, reboot PC and delete the AMD folders on the system drive and in program files/program files (x86) then shut down.

 

[Disco_P]

NEVER use DDU unless you have a specific reason to use it. IE, you've got some driver corruption going on and have tried all the usual means to rectify the problem and now need to turn to creative ways to solve the problem.

DDU will CAUSE you problems other wise.

I don't regularly use DDU but it's never caused any problems. Solved many but caused zero.

 

[Huntyz]

I've used DDU quite a lot with Nvidia drivers and never had an issue.

 

[nashathedog]

I've never needed DDU except once when I was having issues moving from Catalyst to Crimson (both AMD), After many attempts to uninstall the old and install the new I resorted to trying DDU for the first time. It worked fine for me,
However it is not something I would use on a regular basis, just as a last resort. There's no reason why a regular uninstall of AMD's software followed by an install of Nvidia's won't work. That should always be the first thing you try. There's two places you'll find AMD folders after the uninstall, you can manually delete those if you wish but they seem to be of no concern if you don't.