Driver Updating

Hello,
Any comments to make about updating drivers..?
How often should they be updated.
Im currently using drivermax.
Is it safe practice to update the drivers on this programs suggestions.?
Is there any real benefits to be had.
Thanks.in advance.

 

Believe me I was obsessed about updating driver...and if there is any drive update...I would format my laptop and install the new drivers fresh from the start as I didn't want any glitches from leftovers

but later on I discovered that stickign to the driver that ship with the notebook/computer is best because those drivers were meant to work on your specific specifications...

I had issues here or there sooner or later be it with Audio stuttering, randomg blue screens or hangs...

The only exception is the video card driver updates...using the stock ones that shipped with my notebook offered poor performance.... so I installed the nVIDIA 296.10 drivers and those gave me much better performance... thel ater 301.xx drivers seem to cause crashes when playing a simple game such as Hearts or Solitaire which is built into windows

Another exception is the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Drivers, updating these will give you better disk transfer rates 90% of the time....

the rest of the drivers wouldn't give any benefits but onnly headaches

DO NOT UPDATE THE INTEL CHIPSET DRIVERS. Only use the ones that shipped with your computer

If you notice...for example...in my case..I have an Intel Series 6 chipset...

When I try to install the latest Intel Chipset Drivers, the first thing it says after the license agreement is: Target Chipset: Intel 7 Series, yes, it does install, but I noticed it missed one of the bus controllers....hence...always stick to the chipset drivers from the manufacturer that you bought the laptop from...same thing goes for the audio drivers

Latest Intel Drivers

 

I've tried about half a dozen driver programs. All were barely ok.

For the last couple years I use Driver Genius Professional only. Over 95% of the results are perfect ime. Of the other 5%, 3-4% DGP asks if I want to install an older driver, I say no. But I always have a current image & set a system restore point b4 using DGP.

 

Thank you for your advice i really appreciate that.

 

no problem....please check your PM

 

My laptop is a year old. When I bought it, the oldest software date from the factory was only 17 days earlier. So I've noticed increased performance & stability with most every update. I look for updates every month or so.

On older hardware driver updates aren't that important.

 

Basically i dont really need to update them unless there is a problem with a certain device.That would seem to be the safe way to go.

 

There is no need to reformat before installing new drivers. There should not be any problems from leftovers.

Generally speaking there is no need stay with the drivers which came installed. The problems you speak of are usually caused by installing incompatible driver updates. Occasionally new drivers can contain bugs which cause problems - but this is easily rectified by rolling back to the previous driver installed via device managaer. On the other hand, some of the pre installed drivers may have problems which installing updates will fix.

It seems like you installed the wrong chipset drivers. I have occasionally have had problems with inte chipset drivers as well.

 

I reguarly check for driver updates and install updates as soon as they are found.

You may want to do this monthly, but updating drivers is not particuarly important unless a driver us causing problems.

I use DriverMax too (along with several other programs), and some of the updates are not safe to install and may cause problems.

When using driver update software the main thing to watch for is that the current driver and the update are both produced by the same company. For example I've had problems when driver update software has wanted to replace a generic bluetooth drive with one from Toshiba or Motorola.

Sometimes driver updates will lead to better performance (particuarly for graphics drivers) and fix problems, but often there will be no obvious benefit,