Steve Smith talks about how to deal with unstable bad drivers, and how to resolve the issues.
Episode #6-27 released on March 21, 2016
For as long as computers will be a thing, so will drivers. Best practice for all users is typically to update all your drivers and install all updates. But, with some many companies cheating the WQHL tests we can easily expect that your computer and devices will crash for unexpected reasons. While this may not necessarily break your computer, it will ruin your day and probably result in a massive freak out which almost sends the computer into the wall, true story.
Last week's episode was based on annoying things about Windows 10, and for those who follow me on Facebook, and Twitter, you will know I came into some severe bullshit issue with NVidia's driver 364.51, which caused all my monitors to go to different shades of gray, and for some reason prevented me from using my reset button. I coughed up the first instance to a fluke, but each other instance occurred at a faster and faster pace. The fourth time was the last straw, and this is because I was editing in after effects, and I lost all the new work I had done.
I don't panic when my computer does this, I freak the hell out. I don't get basic problems because I can solve these. This one just happened to be a bad driver. This is why I am going to help you all out with the solution to this and other types of driver issues.
Determine if this is a fluke, or a legitimate issue. Computers do crash every once in a while. A reoccurring issue will show up repeatedly. If you have a problem that reoccurs all the time, consider looking for anything you updated recently. You have two options, find a newer update, which may or may not exist, or roll back the driver.
If you have to roll back the driver, you can use the device manager to do this, or you can uninstall the driver, restart the computer, and install the previous stable driver.
If you cannot operate your computer try removing the device if it is an add-on card, or USB device. If it is part of the mainboard, consider deactivating it in the bios, then uninstalling the device driver.
These techniques should help you regain control of your computer, and fix the hardware with stable drivers. However, if the device does not want to work anymore, contact the manufacture for a RMA. Though this should rarely, if never happen.
Now, an extra trip, if the issue is the graphics card, Windows will eventually go into safe mode if your computer resets enough times, then it will bypass the graphics card driver, which you will be able to uninstall at this point. Then install the previous stable driver in this case.
Host : Steve Smith | Music : Jonny Lee Hart | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Productions