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How To Solve “Unable To Connect To Nvidia” Error In Windows 10

Cover Image of How To Fix Unable To Connect To Nvidia Error

If you are an Nvidia user and facing “Unable to connect to NVIDIA” issues while you are trying to open the GeForce Experience, tweak settings for a particular game, or even trying to update the drivers.

This error is not allowing you to update or open the GeForce Experience on your PC, this is not a rare problem, and many people have faced this issue, all of them being Windows users.

This issue is common and widespread across the PC gaming community. There are many causes for this issue, like technical issues with Nvidia servers, corrupt files, and more.

There are many solutions available for this problem. We will talk about the most reliable methods that have proved to resolve the issue for many people.

Before trying any method from this guide, make sure to have stable internet, and if you already have a stable internet connection, try restarting your computer, as sometimes restarting stuff does wonder, and restarting your PC might resolve the issue in your case.

Without wasting any more time, let us get to the guide of resolving the “Unable to connect to NVIDIA” issue.

How To Fix “Unable To Connect To Nvidia” Error

We will try to look into the popular workaround which is popular in the gaming community that has resolved this Nvidia unable to connect issues for many people. The guide has a couple of solutions; feel free to check them one by one and see if your issue has been resolved or not.

#1 – Update Nvidia Graphics Card Driver

If you are unable to download the driver from the software due to this error, you can still update your graphics card driver. You will have to download and install the driver manually from the Nvidia website.

Here is how you can download and install the Nvidia graphics card driver manually:

  1. Go to Nvidia’s official website on your browser.
  2. Select the “DRIVERS” tab on the top and select “GEFORCE DRIVERS
  3. If you are using other GPUs like Quadro, choose the “ALL NVIDIA DRIVERS”.
  4. From the “Product Type: ” drop-down menu, choose “GeForce”. You can choose your respective graphics card type accordingly.
    Selecting product Type
  5. From the “Product Series: ”, choose your GPU series.
    Selecting Product Series
  6. Now, from the “Product: ” choose your GPU name.
    Selecting Product
  7. After selecting your GPU, choose your operating system and select the Download Type as “Game Ready Driver (GRD)”, then select your desired language and press “SEARCH”.
    Choose your operating system
  8. The website will show you the latest GPU driver for your GPU available. Press “DOWNLOAD”.
    Press “DOWNLOAD”.
  9. Download the driver and follow the on-screen instructions to install the software on your PC.
  10. Restart your computer, and you should be good to go.
  11. Launch the GeForce Experience from the system tray in the taskbar to check if the problem persists.

If the issue still persists, please follow the other methods in this guide.

#2 – Disable NVIDIA Services

Nvidia has services running in the background that helps the driver do its job. Out of the Nvidia services, we need to find the “Nvidia Network Service”. The service, which is our main concern, is the “Nvidia Network Service”.

We will be disabling this service and then re-enable it again to check if the issue is resolved or not. Here is what you will need to do to disable the service:

  1. Press the “Win + R” keys on your keyboard and open the Run utility.
  2. Type the “services.msc” in the box and press “OK”. It will open a new Services window.
    Run Service
  3. Now, from the list on the right side, find this service:  Nvidia Network Service
  4. Locate “NVIDIA Network Service” from the list and ensure that the status of the service is “Starting”.Locate the service from the list
  5. Now head over to the file directory where the Nvidia driver is installed; usually, this is the default directory of the driver:
    C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation
  6. After heading over to the NVIDIA Corporation folder, find a new folder named “NetService”.
  7. Inside the folder, find and delete “NSManagedTasks”. It will be a .XML file.
  8. Close everything when done and go to your desktop.
  9. Open the Task Manager from the “Start” button or by right-clicking the Taskbar.
  10. From the list of services, find “NVNetworkService.exe” and click “End Task”.
  11. Go back to “Services” and find the “Nvidia Network Service” and right-click the service, and enable it again.

#3 – Upgrade GeForce Experience program

If any of the methods mentioned above did not work for you, you would have to update your graphics driver by a different method. One method is by downloading and installing the graphics driver from Nvidia’s website.

You can head over to Nvidia’s official website, and from the “Downloads” tab, you can find and download the latest drivers for your GPU. This is by far the most reliable method for upgrading the GPU drivers manually.

The other method for upgrading the GPU drivers is to look for updates via the Windows Device Manager utility. Here is how you can do that:

  1. Click the Windows Start button and search for “Device Manager”.Click the result to open the Device Manager window.Image of searching device manager in windows 10
  2. From the new window find and expand “Display adapters”.
  3. The window will list all of the installed drivers on your system, find your graphics driver under the “Display adapters” right-click and select “Properties”.Image of how to update display drivers
  4. Click the “Driver” tab on the top and select “Update Driver”.
    select “Update Driver”
  5. Select the “Search automatically for drivers” option from the new window.
    select the “Search automatically for drivers”.
  6. The prompt will then search for a new version of drivers, if there exists a new version, Windows will automatically download and install it on your system.
  7. Wait for the download to complete and install the driver if Windows prompts.

Alternatively, by using the “Windows Update” utility, you can also check for a newer version of the Nvidia driver. To do that follow the steps listed down below:

  1. From your desktop, click the Windows Start button on the bottom left corner of your screen and search for “Check for updates”.
    search for “Check for updates”
  2. Click the search result to open a new window; from the window, find and click the “Check for Updates” button.
    press the “Check for Updates”
  3. Windows will search for new versions of drivers including Nvidia drivers and will download and install any pending driver updates automatically.
  4. Restart your system for the changes to take effect.

#4 – Check Your Internet Connection

Having a bad internet connection can make one’s life hard. If you have a strong internet connection with blazing-fast transfer speeds but keeps getting disconnected or the speeds suddenly drop during usage.

These are all signs of a poor connection and can hinder the download and can corrupt data files. This is not acceptable in this age where everything is shifting towards the internet. There is a very high chance that due to internet connection issues, you might be facing Unable to connect to NVIDIA error.

The internet is full of tutorials that will help you in improving your internet connection. Make sure the internet connection from the router to your system is okay, ensuring proper connection.

If you have any internet connection issues, you might have to contact your ISP to resolve the issue ASAP, as it is necessary for games as well as your precious office work or any work that you might use your system for.

#5 – Edit Hosts File

The host file is an operating system file that is used to map hostnames to IP addresses. These are .txt files that has data stored on it in the form of parts. The first part is the location to redirect the address to. The second part is the address that you want to redirect.

The third part is just comments, which can be added for ease of reading the data on the files. You can edit the Hosts file on your PC and can check whether, after editing the hosts file, the unable to connect issue resolves or not.

To edit the Hosts file, you will need to:

  1. Press the Start button in Windows 10 and search for “Run” utility. You can also press “Win + R” on your keyboard to open the Run utility.
  2. Type the below statement without quotations in the Run utility to open Hosts file:
    • “notepad c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
    Run utility to open Hosts file
  3. It will open the Hosts file. After opening the hosts file, find “localhost”, and if the value is “0.0.0.0”, edit to “127.0.0.1”.
    the value is “0.0.0.0”, edit to “127.0.0.1”
  4. Save the file.
  5. If unable to save the file, copy the hosts file onto the desktop, make the changes and save it.
  6. After that, copy the file back to the director and press yes if Windows prompts.

#6 – Install Automatic Driver Updates Tool

If every workaround failed and the issue persists, there is one more way that you can try to fix this annoying issue. With the help of automatic driver updates tools, you can update your graphics driver to the latest version.

There are many tools which you can find on the internet for upgrading. The most popular ones include DriverPack Solution, Driver booster, and more. You will have to download the software from their respective websites.

After downloading, you can scan your PC, and the software will check for driver updates. If the software finds a newer version of a driver, it will prompt for downloading and installing. With a press of a single button, it will upgrade the driver for you.

You can try downloading the drivers from this updater program. However, they are a pain to use. The software will prompt you to download and install other software on your system so, before installing the software, make sure to check all of the necessary checkboxes during the installation wizard.

Related: Nvidia Control Panel Missing In Windows [Solved]

#7 – Uninstall And Reinstall GeForce Experience

The last but not the least workaround in our guide is uninstalling and reinstalling the GeForce Experience. There is a huge chance the driver files might get corrupted due to some unknown reason, due to which you are now facing this problem of GeForce not connecting to the internet.
You can uninstall the GPU driver with the help of “Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU)” utility. DDU will remove every file of the display driver and the remnants which are left behind by generic uninstalling utilities.

To get started, you will have to download the utility first, head over to Google, and search for DDU or Display Driver Uninstaller. Open the first link by guru3d; after downloading, install it to your desired directory and run the software.

After installation, the package will create a folder named DDU v18.0.3.6(current version at the time of writing). Then you will need to:

  1. Open the folder where you have just installed the DDU utility and run the “Display Driver Uninstaller.exe” file.
  2. A new window, full of general and Nvidia/AMD-related options will appear if the software is run for the first time. Press the Close button from the bottom. Do not worry, you can open this window again by clicking the Options tab on the top right corner.
    pressing “Options” button after running the software.
  3. Close the DDU window and reboot your system into safe mode. If you are not familiar with how to boot into safe mode, search for “How to boot your system in safe mode“.
  4. After the PC reboots, relaunch DDU from the installation directory.
  5. Then, click the “Clean and Restart (Highly recommended)” button on the top left corner of the DDU window.
  6. Ensure that you have selected “GPU” and “NVIDIA” from the right side of the software.
    click “Clean and Restart (Highly recommended)”
  7. Wait for the software to completely remove the driver files from your hard drive.
  8. When the process completes, restart your system and head over to Nvidia’s website.
  9. Find and download the latest driver version for your GPU, from the website.
  10. Now, when Windows will complete the installation, restart your system again. This should resolve the issue.

My Final Verdict:

Nvidia is known for its reliable GPUs and driver support. Sometimes, the graphic card driver faces an issue that becomes quite a pain to fix. One of these issues, which are quite common and widely spread across the gaming community, is the “Unable to connect to NVIDIA”.

This error pops up when something is wrong with the GeForce Experience and shows that the software cannot establish a proper connection with the server. However, it still shows a newer, updated version of the driver that is currently installed in the system but does not allow the user to download.

The issue can become quite cumbersome and gets frustrating. However, it is not a difficult issue to resolve, and there are many reliable methods available that can be followed to fix this issue. The workarounds are very easy to follow, and in no time, they will fix the issue.

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Bobby Segura

Bobby Segura

A gaming enthusiast who enjoys everything from the Vagrant Story to Assassin’s Creed. His interest in gaming soon transformed into passion, and he started working as an author of NeoGamr. I keep an eye on all the latest gaming trends and cover them asap.

My expertise is in Software and Application, Internet Research, Console Gaming, Video Games and Gaming, and Gaming & Games.

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