Could I have damaged my gpu?

D

Dew

New Member
Specs:

MOBO Asus- z97-pro
CPU [email protected] GHz
16 GB ram
GPU GTX 1080
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250 GB
WDC 1 GB HHD
WDC 2 GB HHD
Windows 7

So there's a long version, which I will explain later and then there's the short which I will try to keep minimal first.

My main question is is it possible to have damaged my gpu when I uninstalled the drivers for it?

There's a game that I play, that was recommended to uninstall/ reinstall to play due to an update. So I did that and I found that it didn't quite play well anymore, which was strange so I looked into it. Decided that perhaps it was worthwhile to reinstall my drivers for my GPU, so I did that via Task Manager, went to Display Drivers, Clicked on my GPU and hit uninstall........

Screen ratio went all weird, which is expected I assume after uninstalling gpu. Restarted computer, went to NVidia and reinstalled most recent drivers, all good.

Tried the game again, still slow. tried a different game, and then noticed that said game was also noticeably slower.

So after a few more times trying to get my first game to perform reasonable, I remembered the thread sticked in this forum, to use DDU to completly remove any traces of previous GPU Drivers, did that this time and now problems still persist.

Here is a link to the discussion, I am the OP and I would recommend reading through, at the very least my comments to see exactly what happened. https://steamcommunity.com/app/251570/discussions/0/1520386297697790356/


What I noticed mainly is that now, when I start up my computer. What would usually only take 30 seconds too boot up is now taking probly an extra 30 or more seconds for the windows logo to come on, right before I enter in my password to login.

The windows logo also lags just before forming, it's very noticeable and has only just begun happening after I uninstalled my drivers.

I do think it's a good idea to read the discussion because there is some information that I Think could be important, IMO I dont think I've damaged anything, but perhaps I've somehow installed the drivers improperly, is that a possibility given the symptoms that I've described in the steam discussion?

Any thoughts?
 
_Glitch

_Glitch

Active Member
Highly doubt that you have damaged your card because of a driver.
It has happened though. I believe it was back in the days of fermi gpu's (GeForce 400 series and GeForce 500 series).
It was some update that was only up for less than 24 hours that made fermi cards overheat.
I believe a couple of cards died because of it.

Anyway, this isn't the case.
Try a system restore. Choose a point before you uninstalled the driver. Might fix your issue.
 
D

Dew

New Member
I did the System restore, I experienced an error that told me that It did not change my program settings. Said to try again, or restore to a different point, did both of those options and it hasn't helped.

I think I'm going to do the DDU again, but this time I am going to install it to the 2nd most recent driver and see if that helps. I do have a question regarding the link that you provided JLuchinski,
My question is for #2

I already have my drivers installed, I am wonder why it says to download the drivers at this step. And in this case, do I need to install the drivers again, even though they are already installed?
Is it actually possible to download them twice, and could this have been an issue, because I did follow this guide before, as mentioned in the OP.

I will try the DDU again, and let you guys know if I've had success.
 
JLuchinski

JLuchinski

Well-Known Member
It's best to download the latest drivers, run the driver cleaner, restart your computer into safe mode after the drivers are removed and unplug your internet so Windows doesn't start to auto install it's generic drivers the install the new ones.
 
D

Dew

New Member
Still no luck, it's slightly better but definatly slowed down still. Start up seems better, however when I play games it's still slowed down. I was thinking of uninstalling Java, I am wondering if that is somehow conflicting with something
because I was prompted to update java the very first time I Uninstalled my drivers for my GPU.
I am looking in Control Panel/Programs/Programs and features and I see 2 sets of Java update 144

Java 8 Update 144 installed on 10/1/2017 size 27.4MB version 8.0.1440.1
Java 8 Update 144 (64-bit) installed on 10/4/2017 size 109 MB version 8.0.1440.1

Now I read somewhere that maybe java updates could be causing issues that I am experiencing, I know very little about Java, but from the info above it does look like 2 different updates, however can anyone confirm
weather deleting one of this, could fix my issues I am having?
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
They are the 32bit and 64 bit versions of Java. Just uninstall them both as most people don't even need them. Some websites require them but you'll be notified if you need it.
 
JLuchinski

JLuchinski

Well-Known Member
Dew said:
Still no luck, it's slightly better but definatly slowed down still. Start up seems better, however when I play games it's still slowed down. I was thinking of uninstalling Java, I am wondering if that is somehow conflicting with something
because I was prompted to update java the very first time I Uninstalled my drivers for my GPU.
I am looking in Control Panel/Programs/Programs and features and I see 2 sets of Java update 144

Java 8 Update 144 installed on 10/1/2017 size 27.4MB version 8.0.1440.1
Java 8 Update 144 (64-bit) installed on 10/4/2017 size 109 MB version 8.0.1440.1

Now I read somewhere that maybe java updates could be causing issues that I am experiencing, I know very little about Java, but from the info above it does look like 2 different updates, however can anyone confirm
weather deleting one of this, could fix my issues I am having?
Click to expand...

What PSU are you using and how old is it? I had similar issues in the past and it was my PSU.
 
JLuchinski

JLuchinski

Well-Known Member
The best way to measure a psu accurately is with a multi-meter, there are software programs out there but there not at all reliable. Do you have another PSU to test with?
 
D

Dew

New Member
I'm having difficulty finding multi-meter's, I went to a few places today and they are out of stock currently, which is wierd.
I'm going to test my PSU regardless, even if I have to order it on-line.
I was wondering if there are any other suggestions? Also would defragging my HDD's help?

I've just checked and my newest HDD has never been defraged, and the other HDD hasn't been defragged since last year.
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
I doubt its your psu since all you did was install an update to a game. What game is it? So non steam games play fine? Its just steam games that are bad? I would probably back up your games and uninstall steam and then install it again. Or perhaps do a fresh install of windows if its been a while.
 
D

Dew

New Member
Yeah It looks like mainly steam games are affected.
This whole thing became a problem after I uninstalled my GPU, although I don't think the problem comes from that.

Games like, "Overwatch", which is not a steam game plays fine, completly no problems. And then Compare that to a game that would be, in my opinion less demanding say "Dont Starve", now I'm having fps issues with it. I've never had problems with any games, ever and now I'm getting 40 fps in "Dont Starve".

I did uninstall Steam about an hour ago, I saved my game saves using this method http://www.wikihow.com/Reinstall-Steam-and-Save-Your-Game-Files

I have to install all my games again unfortunatly, but I've tried out a game, that I was also having issues with called "Battle Brothers", another game that would generally not be very demanding, and it looks like its playing normally again which is good news.

I tried to boot up Battle Field 1 to compare another non-steam game but for some reason I'm having issues starting it, probly an Origin problem.

I'll re-download a few others games and let you guys know if the problem is gone, however I did try to play "7 Days to die", and I am still having issues with it, that's the original game I had a problem with recently, and that's what caused me to uninstall my GPU and all that followed afterwards. I suspect though, that because it just went into another stage of alpha 16.2-16.3 that there is still some optimization issues, and that maybe there's nothing on my end that can fix that until they patch it. Time will tell though, I'll try to give an update sometime tomorrow and let you know if all is well. Thanks everyone for the advice so far.
 
D

Dew

New Member
So I've tested out a bunch of games here, using Steam, Origin and battle.net. I'll leave a short description below, one thing I noticed that was never there before and that can be seen in the bottom right
while playing, is some sort of symbol, it's like a grey colored circle/rectangle on the outside, with a white circle symbol on the inside, this may or not be relevent info but it is something that has just now shown up. And I can
see it in certain games, across all three platforms (Steam, Origin, Battle.net).

I tried taking a screen capture using steam, but the symbol does not show up in the pictuers that I take.

Steam Games-
Dont Starve- Game runs poorly now, never used to. I only get 40 fps and it's choppy, not a demanding game so I don't know why it runs poorly now.
Battle Brothers- Game runs fine now, always used to except after I uninstalled my GPU, after steam reinstallation it runs with no problems.
Xcom2- Seems to run fine now, always used too except after Uninstalling GPU, fixed after reinstalling Steam.
7 Days to die- Still running like it's slowed down, has gotten better but still basic animations run at something like 20% less than normal speed.
Alien Isolation- I played this game and watched a live stream of someone playing this game at the same time, same kind of issues as 7d2d, seems like it runs at 20% less than normal speed although I am getting 144 fps.
(Grey/white Circle Symbol can be seen in bottom right of screen while playing)
Grand Theft Auto 5- Runs perfectly, 150 fps MAX SETTINGS, (White/grey symbol can be seen while playing)

ORIGIN GAMES-
Battle Field 1- Game runs pretty good, although it suffers from the feeling of 20% less than normal speed when doing things like running, shooting, ect. Latency while playing multiplayer was reported at 35, so it was not laggy while playing.
(Grey/white Symbol can be seen at bottom right of screen)

*** I haven't played bf1 for about 5 months, but that game and all others mentioned used to be played on ultra with no problems.

Battle.net Games-
Diablo 2- runs good, (Grey/white symbol can be seen)
StarCraft2- Runs good
Overwatch- Runs good

So what's the issue here, this seems strange.
I mean I can play gta5 on max settings with ease, but when I play a game like Dont Starve, which is without a doubt far far less demanding I'm getting 40fps??
It just doesn't make sense, and I'm not sure what else I can do here.
Someone mentioned re-installing windows before, but does anyone have any other advice, or any thoughts on what the heck could be going on here?

Edit**

Is there possibly something in the Nvidia Control panel that I could look at?
It might make sense that after I uninstalled my drivers, that something may have changed in the NCP. I'm looking right now.

Edit ****
I believe I've figured out the problem, I used this to fix it.

So I'm guessing my settings in Nvidia got messed up when I uninstalled my gpu.
I didn't test every game yet, but It has fixed a number of them and things seem to be running great now. Thx everyone for your help.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top