I'm soon going to be assembling a new rig, with an AMD Phenom II x6 1090T CPU, verses the Athlon II x2 4400+ that I now have. Obviously, the chipset driver is different and will have to be upgraded also, but is there anything more that isn't automatically installed by the OS installation or Windows Updates?
Win7 installer is mostly driver-complete with newer arriving quickly via optional Windows Updates when you enable hardware auto-updating: Automatically get recommended drivers and updates for your hardware
Afterwards any drivers missing in Device Manager can be imported from the Support Downloads webpage for your model device.
I would not change out any drivers issued by the installer and updated by optional Updates unless performance problems point to that driver.
That answers 99% of my question, but I must ask for you to qualify your last statement. For instance, it is a common practice to use Nvidia drivers directly from the Nvidia website, rather than those automatically installed by Windows. I know that in some cases, particularly with gamers, that this may be due to a performance issue with certain games, but I and others have been doing this as a matter of S.O.P.. Do you feel that this is wrong?
I'd go with the newest at Nvidia. I think Britton would agree with the problems he had.
The newest Nvidia drivers MS tried to download for me were 266 or 268. The 270 has been out since April. A little behind at MS.
I'd go with the Nvidia site GPU drivers.
Everything else on my system is ASUS or MS updated.
If I understood your question right?
Mike
That seems to be a qualified concensus, thanks to both of you.
Sometimes if I jump over an Updates driver to get newer on Nvidia site, the driver has problems which is why Updates held it back. As a rule MS won't release drivers into the installer or Updates that haven't passed testing with Win7, so they may have a backlog in spite of the fortune they spend on it.
OEM's often modify drivers so that they become problematic if imported from the maker's site. The installer and Updates sort this to supply the OEM driver first, or I go to the OEM site to get it first if there is a conflict.
We had a tour of the WHQL lab on MS campus during MVP Global Summit and this process was explained fully so that I understood about half of it.
Yes I wholeheatedly agree with Hopalong on using nVIDIA drivers. The newest 270.61 he referenced has passed WHQL. Download Page
Last edited by Britton30; 16 May 2011 at 22:07. Reason: Misssspellling
The best that I recall, all of the drivers at the Nvidia site are WHQL, except betas, which I never use, so I would think that would mean that they have been tested by MS...yes?
Should be. They have two divisions of WHQL: one where MS tests the drivers, hardware, etc themselves, and an even bigger one where they partner with manufacturers to build Win7 drivers so that they won't hold out on Win7 like they did with Vista to force us to buy newer hardware.
Since MS pays part of the bill they get the OEM drivers into the installer or via optional Updates in real time.
Of course there are always anomalies. We have two Acer desktops in the house with Nv8200 GPU for which Updates keeps pushing through 9200 drivers causing bluescreens. I find no easy way to communicate this to MS; they say they get it through error report telemetry, a good reason to always Send Error Report to MS.
If I thought the problem was more widespread I wouldn't push the company line however I see these problems in only a small handful of installs.
Edit: My roommate reminds me that one of the NV8200 GPU Acers is using Updates' 9200 driver successfully to avoid BSOD with 8200 driver. Go figure.
Last edited by gregrocker; 16 May 2011 at 22:46.
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