I'm not very experienced with PC troubleshooting and was trying to reinstall an older NVIDIA driver because my monitor had been acting up. I removed or deleted the NVIDIA driver, then pressed the computer's reset button. Since then, the PC turns on but my monitor shows no signal at all. I'm using one monitor connected to the graphics card with DisplayPort. I think the card might be an NVIDIA RTX 3060, but I'm not completely sure. What should I check, and how can I recover the display?
2 Answers
First, check the simple hardware possibilities: make sure the DisplayPort cable is firmly connected to the graphics card and monitor, select the correct input on the monitor, and try another cable or port if available. Removing a Windows graphics driver normally does not prevent the computer from showing its startup screen, so a completely blank signal may point to a cable, port, monitor, or hardware issue rather than just the driver.
If you can see the manufacturer logo or BIOS screen but lose the picture when Windows starts, boot into Windows Recovery and choose Startup Settings, then Safe Mode. From there, use Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to remove the remaining NVIDIA driver files, restart normally, and install the correct driver from NVIDIA. Avoid manually deleting driver files in the future; use the official uninstaller or DDU. Also, only use the physical reset button when the computer is completely frozen, since interrupting a restart can sometimes cause additional problems.
I only have one monitor connected by DisplayPort. I’ll check the cable and try another port if my card has one.