Switching camps - driver removal recommendations

[tommybhoy]

Nope, (W7 only) the easiest/quickest way is: Shutdown PC (without uninstalling of Ati driver!!!)
Then open case and swap Ati to Nvidia cards.
Power on and wait, then install newest Nvidia drivers.
Reboot. Enjoy

With W7 both cards can run in PC at same time even, so No need to uninstall!

 

[Barzini]

My own method would be to:

- uninstall ATI drivers from the windows control panel
- Afterwards (and NOT before) run driver sweeper to clear up all leftovers
- Run a registery cleaner (I use pointstone system cleaner 5, great program)
- shut down computer, remove ATI card, insert Nvidia card
- power on and install latest Nvidia drivers

This method is the most logical IMO.

 

[Dervious]

Exactly. Trying to 'fix' problems often involves hours of time and stress. Performing a clean install takes up less..and is way less stressful.

True, but I find that frsh installs of XP or Vista (and probably Win & now) require hours of Microsoft updates. It's the real time wasting part of a reinstall.

I find most systems I "clean" only take about 30-45 mins to get a clean install of the OS running, then it's perhaps another 30 -60 minutes to deal with drivers and stick Avast on the system. Then it's the dreaded 100+ MS updates.

 

[Scougar]

Honestly? Uninstall drivers as normal. Switch of PC, remove card.

Put new card in. Switch on. If ATI, ensure it's detected as Standard VGA adaptor.. if not remove it from device manager and rescan till it is. Then install drivers

Reboot. Done.

(I have never rescanned for hardware in Device Manager btw, but I saw it recommended today, and I have had issue's in the past when the ATI card wasn't first detected as a standard VGA adaptor BEFORE installing the drivers).

 

[Bumhug]

My own method would be to:

- uninstall ATI drivers from the windows control panel
- Afterwards (and NOT before) run driver sweeper to clear up all leftovers
- Run a registery cleaner (I use pointstone system cleaner 5, great program)
- shut down computer, remove ATI card, insert Nvidia card
- power on and install latest Nvidia drivers

This method is the most logical IMO.

No its totaly illogical. If you have no ATI card installed no ATI driver will be loaded by windows, you just need to unistall CCC

People who run driver sweeper are aware that a bog standard fresh install of Windows 7 will have both Nvidia and ATI drivers installed? Along with several hundred other devices that you will never use, these dont actualy get loaded everytime you start windows

 

[IT Troll]

Switch complete. I uninstalled the ATI drivers through the Control Panel and although I selected uninstall everything it does still leave behind a service; AMD External Events Utility. This does still start up and remain active in the process list even when the ATI card has been removed and PC rebooted. Apparently it is a hotkey polling service.

To remove it for good run the following at an administrative command prompt:

sc stop "AMD External Events Utility"
sc delete "AMD External Events Utility"

Which should result in:

[SC] DeleteService SUCCESS

 

[J.D]

I just plonked an 8800GTX in from a 5850 (RMA) and installed ATI drivers. Runs fine!

So how did the ATI drivers perform on the 8800GTX then? .

 

[Blue160]

Went from ATI to Nvidia in August. Uninstalled ATI drivers, put in new card and installed Nvidia drivers. Never had any problems at all. Definitely no need for a reinstall.

 

[Durzel]

I've personally never had an issue with Driver Cleaner .NET (the paid version, don't know if there is a free version and/or whether it differs). Have been using it to remove ATI drivers for months without apparent issues.

 

[kitch9]

Uninstall drivers.
Shut down.
Install new card.
Reboot.
Install new drivers.
Profit.......? Be glad that we're all not running Windows ME, like some of the people in this thread seem to think you are using...

*edited.*

 

[Xelene]

I have both cards and obviously both drivers installed on mine at the moment. No issues.

 

[Gerard]

I installed my 6970 yesterday, i just uninstalled the nvidia drivers. However i noticed that in 3d mark 11 the card was scoring about 1.5k lower than it should have been. Done a driver sweep scan for nvidia drivers and my score is back up where it should be.

The avp benchmark also suffered quite a bit till i done this.