Whether to install drivers or not  

Well, it seems this question never gets old.

I read like 10 threads here and something else I googled.

The question is: Should I install device drivers or not? If so, in which order?

To sum up, I found two points of view here.

1) NO. Do not install drivers unless it shows unknown devices in the device manager or you can't use a feature properly (such us networking). Windows 7 has its own drivers and knows what is best.

2) YES. Always install drivers. Chipset and graphic drivers help your PC run smoothly and other drivers like audio and ethernet might add additional functionality to your devices.


I'm more inclined to believe the second option.
For example, a friend's computer after a clean install doesn't show any unknown device in the device manager. However, it is needed to manually install ethernet drivers for the wi-fi card (that'd be option 1). BUT, even tough there's a high definition audio device that appears to work properly, until you install chipset drivers Windows does not show any audio output device installed.


What I've always done is chipset, graphic, ethernet, audio, everything else, Windows updates.



What do YOU do?

I install the correct drivers because the correct driver results in the best performance from the hardware device in question. To exaggerate the difference: compare the generic Microsoft video card driver to the correct one from either AMD or NVIDIA. To some degree, this same difference applies to everything that you can install a driver for, such as the chipset, the IDE/ATA ATAPI controllers, the sound card, ethernet port, the mouse and keyboard, etc.

I even went as far as installing the correct driver for my monitor because then Windows knows everything about it and therefore I get the best results.

I do not allow Windows Update to install any drivers because then my preferred drivers could be replaced and I wouldn't like that.

Thank you for replying.

Well yeah that's what I thought. So I always install them.

But sometimes I get confused.
For instance, my current computer has a NVidia chipset with a NVidia graphic card (onboard).

There are available chipset drivers (the NVvidia 4 in 1) which include "display driver", "away mode driver", "ethernet driver" and "storage driver". And ALSO there are available graphic divers.

I did this fresh install like 2 months ago so at this point I don't remember what I did. Everything works fine and smooth now. But I didn't even know the difference between display and graphic drivers and why there were both of them for the same chipset/graphic card.

RonAshman said:

Thank you for replying.

Well yeah that's what I thought. So I always install them.

But sometimes I get confused.
For instance, my current computer has a NVidia chipset with a NVidia graphic card (onboard).

There are available chipset drivers (the NVvidia 4 in 1) which include "display driver", "away mode driver", "ethernet driver" and "storage driver". And ALSO there are available graphic divers.

I did this fresh install like 2 months ago so at this point I don't remember what I did. Everything works fine and smooth now. But I didn't even know the difference between display and graphic drivers and why there were both of them for the same chipset/graphic card.

Back in those days, NVIDIA called the GPU driver the "display driver". Today, they're using the name "Graphics Driver". People were confused because to some people, "display driver" means "monitor driver".

So, there's no difference at all. The driver for the onboard video (it's not a video card, it's just a chip) used to be called Display Driver but now NVIDIA calls it Graphics Driver. It's the same thing. The same is true for video card drivers.

Ohhh, I see.

Thanks, that's clearer now.

Guess I should have installed the 4in1 without the "display driver" since the "graphic driver" alone had a more updated version of the driver.
Well, it works ok now.

RonAshman said:

Ohhh, I see.

Thanks, that's clearer now.

Guess I should have installed the 4in1 without the "display driver" since the "graphic driver" alone had a more updated version of the driver.
Well, it works ok now.

Well, your onboard video is so old that the old driver should be more than good enough.