pre-installing chipset drivers a good thing?

[gmwal]

Hello
Just wondering if preinstalling chip set drivers is okay. I have all my chipset drivers downloaded from my motherboard providers webpage and then save them to a usb thumb drive. When the win 7 installer shows my partitions and drives i just click on load drivers and browse to usb and load all chipset drivers. I get a list of some 30 different drivers and install all.

Interestingly, there are 8 intel ich10 family usb enhanced host controllers (3A3C, 3A3A, 3A34-3A39) that wont install. I have to do it right after the installation is complete (first time i enter desktop environment). Any ideas why this might be happening and what to do about it? Also is it fine to install these drivers in this manner?

Cheers!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Preinstalling???

As far as I know, the best practice is to install chipset drivers immediately after Windows, before any other drivers.

 

[seavixen32]

It's reckoned to be good practice to install chipset drivers first, by virtue of how much hardware such as USB controllers etc., need the drivers to function.

If ever I reinstall I always install the chipset drivers first, followed by any storage drivers then network adapters and the graphics card before finishing up with the sound card and other bits and pieces.

 

[gregrocker]

While this may have been true in XP and early Vista, Win7 is driver-complete with newer drivers delivered via optional Windows Updates.

Microsoft spent a fortune subsidizing manufacturers to build drivers for Win7 so they could have them in the installer first and available via Updates, and so manufacturers couldn't hold out as they did in early Vista to force us to buy newer hardware.

After install and Updates, you only need to import drivers missing in Device Manager. Then I would not change out any drivers unless performance problems point specifically to those drivers, or you are stuck with the Standard VGA display driver.

 

[gmwal]

i ask this question because when i preinstall chipset drivers they are all seen as updated by Driver Detective after OS installation. There are some specific drivers (USb host controllers) that i have to manually install after OS install but that works fine as well because they are not updated by windows update. If i install chipset drivers immediately after OS installation there are always 6 specific drivers missing (belonging to the SOuthbridge chipset family).

Not sure how it works but my impression is drivers are downloaded and installed to a system folder in the subdirectory called "Drivers" right? If this is true where are preinstalled drivers installed to?

None the less it seems to me that preinstalling CHIPSET drivers only seems to work fine. I just want to know from someone with more knowledge about this if that is indeed the case?

thanks

 

[gregrocker]

Sorry I thought we were talking about Win7.

If it's XP then using Driver Detective or pre-loading chipset is still required. It isn't at all required by Win7 unless performance problems point to the chipset given by the installer or Windows updates - then you can change them out to see the difference.

We see a lot of cases here of users trying to apply XP solutions to Win7 which is a whole new ballgame. Users will change out all of the drivers given by installer and wonder why they have performance problems.

 

[gmwal]

I am talking about windows 7.

I think i am being the one that is unclear. I am a bit of a noobie.

I get what ur saying that W7 is driver complete. However i think ur wrong because i have drivers that are out of date as i mentioned above when i use driver detective.

Having said that everything works fine. I have no performance hits that i can think of.

 

[derekimo]

I am talking about windows 7.

I think i am being the one that is unclear. I am a bit of a noobie.

I get what ur saying that W7 is driver complete. However i think ur wrong because i have drivers that are out of date as i mentioned above when i use driver detective.

Having said that everything works fine. I have no performance hits that i can think of.

I would trust windows to know if a driver is out of date, if everything is working fine then you don't really need to update any drivers.

Driver Detective may be giving you some inaccurate info, the best place to get the correct drivers is the manufacturer's downloads page if one is out of date.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I have all my chipset drivers downloaded from my motherboard providers webpage and then save them to a usb thumb drive.

You use the plural "drivers" and "them".

As far as I know, a motherboard usually has ONE set of chipset drivers, not multiple sets.

So I am wondering if there is some terminology confusion here??

Are you installing TWO or more chipset drivers on a single motherboard??

And I don't understand what you mean by "pre-install". "Pre" usually means "before", so the question is "before what"?? Why not just install them AFTER Windows, in the normal fashion?

 

[gmwal]

ignatzatsonic:

You are right, I am talking about one set of chipset drivers downloaded from my Motherboard website

When i say preinstall (and bear with me b/c i do not know the proper terminology so i will describe it as best i can) when you run the Win7 installer and you get to the screen where you can partition your drives, format them, where you want to install your OS just before it installs, etc. there is an option to "load drivers". At this point i plug my usb device that has the chipset drivers on them and load them from my usb device. I use the plural form because there are several individual chipset drivers in the set but normally if you run the setup program after OS installation u do not see them because they are all installed automatically by the installer. But here windows lists individually all the chipset drivers belonging to that set. so for example, i can install individual chip set drivers that belong to that one set.

The reason i dont just run the setup program after OS installation like most people and install the whole set at once is because when i run driver detection programs that scan my computer for latest drivers, some system devices that should of been updated by the chipset drivers are not .

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Slightly more clear now.

I guess we differ on the importance of drivers. I don't obsess over updating them. If my hardware works well, I leave well enough alone and don't update. If I have hardware problems, then I might consider drivers as a possible solution. Otherwise, I ignore them. I feel the same way about BIOS updates.

I tried DriverMax several years ago and gave up on it. Can't recall why, but ultimately it didn't prove worthwhile.

If your method works well for you, keep using it.

 

[gmwal]

yeah, i like having things perfect

 

[gregrocker]

We only have to sweat preinstalling mobo drivers on XP which doesn't have any SATA drivers before SP's and only some afterwards. Win7 already has all mobo drivers in the installer.

 

[DeaconFrost]

I'm going to say it is reduntant and not necessary, especially for Intel chipsets. I don't think it will hurt anything, but you'll need to rerun the installer after Windows 7 is installed anyway, to get the rest of the drivers. If you pre-install them, you are only installing the controller drivers, and that's it.

 

[gregrocker]

Driver programs made mistakes regularly in XP and seemed to do even worse with Win7, which is inexcusable since Microsoft has all the drivers and vets them closely in WHQLabs around the world. I think this is why most of us let go of Driver Programs during Win7 beta while rolling our eyes.

Sometimes if you have a newer driver available on the manufacturer's Support Downloads webpage there is a reason why Microsoft has held it back from installer or Updates, perhaps a graphics driver that interfered with smooth suspend or resume as I've confirmed a lot here.

I had the chance to ask a MS scientist in the WHQL lab in Seattle during a tour at the MVP conference how confident they are that 7 drivers are current and he replied "Very confident." That they helped pay the manufacturer for building many of these drivers directly to is no small part of that, I'm sure.

 

[DeaconFrost]

As far as I know, a motherboard usually has ONE set of chipset drivers, not multiple sets.

Not to sound like I'm nitpicking, but I usually refer to them as chipset drivers as well. I only use Intel chipsets, and the installer actually includes several drivers for my boards, not just one driver per board, or per chipset. There are quite a few hardware resources that get driver updates from that one, unified file. I also have USB 3.0 drivers for some boards, and the drivers for my controllers as well to use the iaStore driver instead of the msahci driver for my SSDs.

 

[dondreak]

Preinstalling???

As far as I know, the best practice is to install chipset drivers immediately after Windows, before any other drivers.

I second that motion!! That's the way I do it.

You can't install the proper Video drivers unless the motherboard has the chipset drives installed.

 

[dondreak]

Of Course Microsoft Engineers would say that. They are AROGANT and CLUELESS.

Hence their blind ignorance that "Automatically Detect Settings" in LAN Connection settings under Internet Explorer works. It actually Does not work and I've been telling them that since Windows 95.

Also the "Hide Extensions for Known File Types". I've been telling them that this option is responsible for viruses being spread. Loses that write viruses have been exploiting that since 1995 too.

 

[gregrocker]

I second that motion!! That's the way I do it.

You can't install the proper Video drivers unless the motherboard has the chipset drives installed.

This is a Windows 7 forum. XP rules don't apply here.

Many of us have been with 7 since beta release and have literally hundreds of installs so know what happens under all conditions.

All but a few drivers are in the installers or delivered via optional Updates.

Of Course Microsoft Engineers would say that. They are AROGANT and CLUELESS.

"Experts" with six posts with misspelled screaming in them are easy to discount. Be nice or or you'll be gone in a blink.

MS Engineers earned the right to be listened to when they created the best OS ever.