Problems with Nvidia 181.20 drivers

[BombayMix]

So, Friday morning I thought I’ll upgrade my Nvidia drivers to the 181.20. So, I followed the usual procedure: uninstall, reboot, logon back on to install new drivers. However, once I enter the admin account the screen went blank! “Er”, I thought, “Lets re-reboot”. This time right before the Vista logo appeared the screen went blank!! Rebooting in safe mode gave me a screen display but uninstalling the drivers and rebooting normally still resulted in a blank screen.

Queue a whole morning lost trying to get a stable screen display back. It rather hard to fix a problem, when the screen keeps on turning itself off!! Eventually using the system restore feature in safe mode gave me back a stable screen display using my original drivers.

Not 100% how to go about install new drivers now. Poking around the Nvidia forums a few people have had the same problem. Someone suggested doing a driver cleaner.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=86372

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=86177

 

[Loque]

I personally just install the updated drivers without uninstalling the old ones. They are both nvidia drivers afterall, and the new ones just overwrite the old ones. Simple
Never had any problems installing my drivers like that.

 

[Popov]

Personally I uninstall the drivers, boot into safe mode, run driver cleaner on all 3 of the nvidia options then boot back into windows normally to install the new drivers (worked fine with the 181.20's for me)

 

[sepulchre]

I just run driversweeper with admin privledges in Vista, I dont bother uninstalling them via control panel anymore, reboot and isntall the new driver. Worked fine so far and 181.20's are running very nicely.

 

[siege2]

I always install straight after downloading the newer version, never have uninstalled at all.

 

[RavenXXX2]

Using same set on windows 7 and have had not one problem. I always uninstall first then use drive sweeper then reboot

 

[Rroff]

Never uninstall here or driver cleaning - infact found that more likely to cause a problem lol - not had a single problem just installing over the top.

 

[Nick644622]

178.24 is what you need. Every release since is pants (on my rig anyway).

 

[byron_hinson]

Think both ATI and Nvidia say these days it doesn't matter about installing over them

 

[mr griffin]

installed over old ones had no problems either

 

[w3bbo]

I have never uninstalled old drivers while updating. The only time I have bothered with uninstalling & cleaning is when switching sides (ATI vs NV).

 

[BombayMix]

Tried it again with no joy.

First I installed the new drivers over the old. Upon reboot all seems fine but a few seconds after going into the admin account the screen went blank.

Rebooted into safe mode, uninstalled driver, ran DriverSweeper then restarted back into safe mode. Upon logon Vista auto installed some drivers and wanted a reboot, which I did but went I logged back in the screen went blank again

Tried a few other things but no joy. Ended up doing another system restore.

For the record I have a GT8800 Ultra and Vista 64.