How To Update Your NVIDIA Drivers for Windows 7

If you are experiencing a black screen when trying to play games or watch Netflix, or you get weird colors and textures in games, or even if you get a “NVIDIA driver error” you may need to update your NVIDIA drivers. These are all video driver errors, and if you are reading this you probably have an NVIDIA video card.

 

What are NVIDIA Drivers?

 

NVIDIA drivers are video card drivers. Drivers are bits of programming that tell your hardware, in this case your video card, how to talk to Windows. Without drivers your computer wouldn't work. If a driver gets corrupted or out of date you need to update the driver or else you will start encountering errors.

 

What Causes NVIDIA Driver Errors?

 

NVIDIA drivers need regular updates because when Windows updates the programming the core of Windows changes some; enough changes and the drivers aren't speaking the same language as Windows anymore, thus errors. Also, if you have been infected with a virus or spyware these malicious programs can damage your drivers and corrupt them, thus causing errors. The way to fix NVIDIA driver errors is to update your NVIDIA drivers.

 

How to Update NVIDIA Drivers

 

There are many NVIDIA cards. The first step in updating your driver is to find out which card you have.

 

1. Go to Start
2. In the Search box type in “Device Manager” and press Enter

3. Click on the triangle next to “Display Adapters.” This will tell you which NVIDIA card you have. Write it down for future reference you will need that information in a minute.

 

 

Now we want to download and install the NVIDIA drivers:

 

1. Open up your web browser
2. Go to: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

 

3. Here you will find a series of drop down boxes that allow you to find your NVIDIA card. Choose the selections that match the NVIDIA card you wrote down and then click the green “Search” button
4. Once you are at the driver page there will be a summary and a green “Download” button. Click on the “Download” button and at the next screen will be a End User Agreement that you need to agree to before you download the file. Click the “Agree & Download” button, and save the file.
5. Once the file is downloaded open it up and pick a folder you want to open it in. You can use the default here it won't really matter. Now the drivers will pretty much install itself from here. It will ask to for a confirmation on Express Install or Custom Install. Pick Express Install, and after it's done installing it may ask you to restart. 

That's all there is to updating your NVIDIA drivers manually. There is an easier way though. There's software on the market called driver update software that will check your drivers, see if they need an update, then search the manufacturer's webpage for the correct drivers, then install the drivers for you. All in a matter of a few minutes.