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Dec 17, 2015  Should I install my motherboard drivers? Sign in to follow this. Should I install my motherboard drivers? By CaptainGunny, December 17, 2015 in CPUs, Motherboards, and Memory 11 replies. I use wifi card with drivers. Should I download them for the disc or website? Apr 11, 2016  There can be some features of your motherboard that can be enabled with the manufacturer's chipset driver that may not be enabled with a generic Windows driver. If Windows has installed the manufacturer's driver already then this may not be necessary. I went online to look for drivers. For my motherboard, Foxconn offers LAN drivers, on-board audio drivers, and chipset drivers. Why should I install hardware drivers if my computer is working fine? Ask Question. If Windows Update offers an updated driver, I do let it download and install. – Windos Sep 8. Jul 26, 2017  The latest versions of these drivers are also available or download from the manufacturer’s website. For example, if you have a laptop, all the drivers for your laptop’s hardware will be available on the manufacturer’s website — find the downloads page for your specific product model.

I've just installed Windows 7 on my PC.

I went online to look for drivers. For my motherboard, Foxconn offers LAN drivers, on-board audio drivers, and chipset drivers. And for my graphics card, Nvidia offers a graphics card driver, obviously.

But then I stopped and wondered.. what benefit would I gain from installing them?

• The LAN cable is plugged in and I'm online; no problems there.
• The on-board audio is working fine.
• A quick Google tells me that a chipset is responsible for moving data around my motherboard – which seems to be happening OK!
• And my graphics look perfect.

So why should I install the drivers? What would they give me, other than badly designed 'management' interfaces, and pointless 'notifications' whenever I plug in an audio jack?

If there are different considerations for each of the components – chipset, audio, LAN, and graphics (and any others you think I should be aware of) – please break it down in your answer.

Update: I've had a couple of answers already, saying that I'll get better stability, bugfixes, etc.

Can I slightly expand my question.. Can I get all these same benefits if I install the drivers via Windows Update? And if I do this, would I avoid having to install the vendor-specific UIs, which I find so annoying?

callumcallum

6 Answers

The generic drivers are often provided by the manufacturers themselves, but they are specifically designed to get the system working at all, not necessarily working well. Further, depending on the component, they may outdated and can not only run slower than with a newer driver, but also have bugs that may have since been fixed. Plus, you may think that your system is old and newer drivers are unnecessary since the current/old/generic ones worked just fine last year, but consider bugs that lead to exploits which could allow an attacker to do something to mess up your system: you may not have changed anything with your system, but the outside world has changed, thus requiring a newer driver to patch the hole.

• Your network card may be working, but with the generic drivers, you may not have functions like wake-on-lan or the ability to shut it off when in standby.

• Your audio card may be working, but you may only have 2-speakers or lesser volume controls with the generic drivers.

• Your graphics may look fine, but you may have poor 3D performance, or limited resolutions, or fewer configuration controls without the drivers from the manufacturer.

• The generic drivers for your chipset may be working, but specific drivers for it may enable some functions that the generic ones do not provide.

The built-in drivers let you install Windows, boot up, and do some basic things, but for the best performance, the most “customizability”, and the most stability, you will want to install the most updated, specific drivers for each component.

SynetechSynetech

Regarding graphic card drivers..

If you are gamer, both nVidia and ATI are optimizing their drivers for (popular) AAA games. For example, if Super Computer Game 3 hits the stores today, in a week nV and ATI might ship new version of drivers which will increase your FPS (frame per second) or in some other way improve your gaming experience.

It's possible Windows 7 had all of your required drivers built in (it seems to be pretty good for drivers.) Updated drivers however could increase the device's efficiency, performance or fix an error/fault the manufacturer has found with the old drivers.

Have a look in the device manager and see if there are any 'unknown' devices. If there are just install the drivers needed for them.

Personally, the only drivers I update from what comes with Windows 7 is chipset and graphics. Anything else I only install if, like I said above, it shows as unknown in Device Manager.

Also, it is often possible to unpack a driver package and have deice manager/the new devices wizard search for the driver directly, avoiding the horrible packaged software/management utils.

WindosWindos

While Windows 7 does come with an impressive array of adequate default drivers, these default drivers may not include for support for advanced features specific to your hardware.

In reality, you should only update hardware drivers if the following is true:

• The hardware is malfunctioning
• Windows blue screens
• The hardware performance is lacking
• Features specific to your hardware are unavailable or not functioning correctly.

It's usually best to use the manufacturer's drivers for the graphics adapter because the function of each iteration of graphics chipset is so specific the default Windows drivers may not be adequate in the long run (not to mention all the bugs the manufacturer works out of the driver set).

I personally use the install disks for all the hardware I install and don't update unless it's necessary. In the case of graphics cards, I use the disk and immediately get the updated drivers from the website.

To each their own, your mileage may vary.

Edit:Apparently I did not provide sufficient explanation of my position.

Because, as with all software, drivers can have bugs and/or cause compatibility issues with other drivers. Even with Windows' ability to rollback drivers it is easier to use the drivers that are known good than to update, test, revert. This is especially true with production systems where having the thing work reliably is more important than having the latest/greatest drivers/software.

They may work but they may not work to the best of their ability.

For instance if you don't install your GPU drivers you won't be getting full 3D acceleration and the fans won't be able to function as there is no proper connection between the hardware and OS.

All in all, drivers help you get the most out of your hardware. Windows 7 provides drivers to let you see the Windows 7 experience right away without tinkering too much. From then on you can install drivers as necessary.

Sandeep Bansal

All Motherboard Driver Free Download

Sandeep Bansal

You can generally avoid the Vendor UIs (which I agree are annoying) by installing just the drivers. Some driver installer packages offer this, allowing you to forego their applications and interfaces. But for some you'll need to extract the drivers and then use the Update Driver function in Windows to install just that driver.

Or, you can install the full driver package with all it's junk and then disable the startup of any driver-related applications and services (Intel and HP both like using services) using a tool such as AutoRuns.

These are the methods I've used to get the benefits of the full driver without having to deal with the cruft so many manufacturers think you really want and need.

music2myearmusic2myear

Should I Install My Motherboard Drivers

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Hardware drivers are the software that allow your operating system to communicate with your hardware. Windows includes built-in drivers and automatically downloads new ones to make setup easier, but device manufacturers also provide their own driver packages.

The default drivers Microsoft provides are stripped down and a bit older, but they’re written by your device manufacturer — not Microsoft themselves. They’re often good enough, but sometimes you’ll want the complete package or a driver Windows can’t provide.

Drivers 101

Manufacturers write drivers for their hardware and provide them directly to you. If you buy a complete PC or laptop, it will come with the manufacturer’s drivers integrated. You may even get a driver CD containing drivers you can install on your computer. The latest versions of these drivers are also available or download from the manufacturer’s website. For example, if you have a laptop, all the drivers for your laptop’s hardware will be available on the manufacturer’s website — find the downloads page for your specific product model. If you build your own desktop PC, you’ll find hardware drivers for each component on each manufacturer’s website.

To ensure hardware works as well as possible, Microsoft doesn’t force you to install drivers from your manufacturer before hardware will work. Windows itself includes drivers, and new drivers can be automatically downloaded from Windows Update. Some components also have standard, “generic” drivers. For example, when you connect a USB drive to your PC, Windows uses standard USB mass storage device drivers. Manufacturers don’t have to create their own drivers for USB devices, mice, keyboards, computer monitors, and certain other types of peripherals.

How Microsoft Provides Drivers

Drivers are integrated into Windows itself, which is why the latest versions of Windows will provide the best out-of-the-box hardware support on newer hardware. For example, if you installed Windows 7 on your PC and a piece of hardware didn’t work immediately, you might have to download drivers for that hardware component from its manufacturer’s website and install them manually. If you installed Windows 8.1 on that same PC, everything might work out of the box because Windows 8.1 come with more modern drivers.

When you connect a device to your PC, Windows attempts to automatically configure it and install the appropriate driver. By default, Windows will check Windows Update for a driver is no drivers exist on the PC. Microsoft also distributes updated drivers via Windows Update, so you can get any necessary driver updates from there instead of hunting them down.

How Manufacturer-Provided Drivers Are Different

RELATED:When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers?

The driver packages Windows automatically installs are different from the ones your device manufacturers provide. The core drivers are created by your device manufacturer and provided by Microsoft after they go through Microsoft’s WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) testing to ensure they’re stable.

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However, Microsoft provides these drivers in stripped-down form. For example, when you get drivers for NVIDIA or AMD graphics cards from Windows Update, you’re getting a driver package without the NVIDIA Control Panel or the AMD Catalyst control panel. Connect a printer and the automatically provided drives won’t include the printer’s control panel. Plug in a wireless mouse and it will work immediately, but you’ll need the manufacturer’s control panel if you want to view the mouse’s battery level or customize what the buttons do. However, you may not always want these hardware utilities.

The versions of the drivers Microsoft provides are also a bit older. Microsoft doesn’t update these drivers as frequently, so your device manufacturer may have newer versions on their website. However, using older drivers often isn’t a problem. We don’t recommend updating hardware drivers — this can introduce problems. The one exception is graphics drivers, where you do want the latest versions of your graphics drivers if you play PC games.

Our Recommendation

RELATED:How to Update Your Graphics Drivers for Maximum Gaming Performance

If you install Windows on your PC or insert a new hardware device and it works out of the box — great! If everything is working properly, you probably don’t need to install hardware drivers. Some device manufacturers may even recommend against installing their hardware driver packages on modern versions of Windows like Windows 8, as Windows already includes the necessary drivers.

However, there are some cases where you will want to get drivers from your manufacturer:

• If You Play PC Games: Install the latest graphics drivers directly from NVIDIA or AMD if you play PC games. Not only do these packages include tools that will help you configure your graphical settings; newer versions will also improve performance.
• When You Need a Hardware Utility: Install manufacturer-provided drier packages when you need some kind of included hardware utility. For example, you may want to know how much ink is left in your printer. If this isn’t displayed on the printer itself, you may need the printer manufacturer’s control panel to see this information.
• When You Need the Latest Version: You probably don’t need the latest version of a driver. In some rare cases, a bug may be fixed in the latest version and you’ll need to install it from your manufacturer’s website.
• If Hardware Doesn’t Work: Download hardware drivers from a device’s manufacturer if Windows can’t automatically detect and install the hardware. Windows isn’t perfect and can’t automatically configure every piece of hardware.
• If You Have an Issue: Install the driver package from your manufacturer if a hardware device seems to not be working properly. It may seem buggy or just slow.

Should I Download Motherboard Drivers Windows 7

This will probably be controversial advice. Many geeks swear by installing all the manufacturer-provided drivers after they install Windows on their PC — motherboard chipset, network, CPU, USB, graphics, and everything else. But we’re not using Windows XP anymore — modern versions of Windows have improved.

Installing your manufacturer’s drivers often won’t be necessary. Your computer won’t be faster just because you regularly update your hardware drivers, and it also won’t be slower just because you’re using drivers that are a few versions old. (Graphics drivers are the one big exception here.)

Which Motherboard Drivers Do I Need

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