There may be times when you'll want to do a clean reinstallation of your GPU Drivers, and while you can use NVIDIA's Custom Install feature or AMD's Cleanup Utility to do the work, for a more aggressive reinstallation, there is a better option that does a more intensive cleaning of the GPU drivers.
That option is in the form of Display Driver Uninstaller (or DDU), a free software utility that does exactly what you'd think it does--completely uninstall AMD/NVIDIA's graphics drivers from your system without leaving leftovers behind.
This guide will walk you through the process of using the Display Driver Uninstaller utility.
What To Prep
- A current version of your GPU drivers
- NVIDIA's drivers can be found here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/
- NVIDIA tends to update their drivers every 2-3 weeks
- AMD's drivers can be found here: https://www.amd.com/en/support/download/drivers.html
- NVIDIA's drivers can be found here: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/
Step 1: Download DDU
Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) can be downloaded for free here: https://www.guru3d.com/download/display-driver-uninstaller-download/
Once on the site, click on the "Download Mirror" for the region (outlined above in red) you are in and DDU will download as a ZIP file.
NOTE: You might see buttons on the top and bottom of the page that say download. The actual download links will be noted in the green boxes underneath the "About this file" section, which are outlined in red in the photo above.
Step 2: Open DDU
You should find a file named [Guru3D.com]-DDU.zip in your Downloads folder. Extract the folder by pressing Extract All (or by hovering over the file and right-click> Show More Options > Extract All) in File Explorer. Once that's done, you'll see the extracted folder as a separate listing.
When you click into the folder, you should see the folder set up like this:
Open the application labeled DDU v[Current Version].exe and click Extract.
(Note: This guide will use v18.0.8.3 exact application version will change as the application is updated.
Done correctly, and you'll see a new folder with the version of DDU appear in the folder.
Enter that folder, and run the application labeled Display Driver Uninstaller.exe.
This will open the application with a "first time using the software" prompt that recommends having backups. You can press OK to close the prompt and then you'll have an OPTIONS prompt pop up with listings for General Options, NVIDIA Specific, AMD Specific, Intel Specific, and Advanced Options.
You can leave it set up as follow:
Press Close on this prompt when you're done. After that, you might get a prompt that looks like this:
You won't run into issues if you're not in safe mode, so you can press OK to close this message.
Once that closes, where it says --Select Device Type-- select GPU, and then select your GPU brand under --Select Device--
NVIDIA will look like this:
AMD will look like this:
NOTE: There is also an Intel selection under Select Device, but it is referring to the Intel Arc line of discrete GPUs. You can ignore that option.
Once everything is selected, select the option labeled Clean and Restart and the software will remove everything related to the GPU drivers and then restart the computer.
Once you've restarted the PC, install the GPU driver you downloaded earlier. We recommend still setting it up as a Clean Installation if you can, just for ease.
If you need further assistance, please contact our Support team.