Inquiry more than a problem…

[EvilOzzmess]

Inquiry more than a problem…

Should I be concerned that after nearly a year of ownership of my AS5738PG-6306 Notebook that Acer has NOT released a single Driver update during this time? All of the drivers on my system are dated between 2006 on through to 2009 only, no 2010 at all anywhere. I know that this is IMPOSSIBLE because drivers are updated at least once every year (barring the HDD/USB mumbo jumbo), sometimes on up to three but it’s never a case of never!

I happen to know that ATI has in fact released a new driver for the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 circa 2010. Yet, this driver version isn’t registering in Device Manager’s “Update online” thing, nor on “Acer Updater” or “Winnows Update” and this goes for all other possibly newer versions available out there.

So my question is… what would happen if I used Drivers NOT approved by Acer on this Notebook, directly from the device’s manufacturer instead? I am concerned this could interfere with certain “OEM” programming/configurations from Acer if I chose to do this.

If there is ANY chance that this could mess my system up (necessitating a Factory Restore) I do NOT wish to do this. I have NEVER used Drivers not sent out to my system by the system’s Manufacturer before so I am just curious as to what I should do in this instance.

From the looks of it, Acer will NEVER send out these updates for my (now discontinued) system.

Also, my Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 states “2006” for its driver version… that explains a hell of a lot on all of the questionable readings TskMn gives out for this CPU – sometimes hits 100% load on simple webpages! I want to update it too. No WAY Intel never released an updated driver newer than 2006 for that CPU!

As for the million dollar question... this PC isn't broke, it's actually running very good. So, is this a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" or should I take the chance and just go for possible performance boosts any/all updated drivers out there for my system's hardware have to offer?


As always, thank you very much for your help!

 

[richc46]

Dont count on Acer, this is how you get updates
How to Find Drivers
search Google for the name of the driver
- compare the Google results with what's installed on your system to figure out which device/program it belongs to
- visit the web site of the manufacturer of the hardware/program to get the latest drivers (DON'T use Windows Update or the Update driver function of Device Manager).
- if there are difficulties in locating them, post back with questions and someone - will help you search Google for the name of the driver
- compare the Google results with what's installed on your system to figure out which device/program it belongs to
- - if there are difficulties in locating them, post back with questions and someone will try and help you locate the appropriate program.
- The most common drivers are listed on this page: http://www.carrona.org/dvrref.html
- - Driver manufacturer links are on this page: http://www.carrona.org/drvrdown.html
and here
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/the-vista-master-driver-list/

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/96442-device-manager-finding-unknown-devices.html

Get the information on the drivers, as shown, and get the drivers. Make a system restore point to be sure that you can go back in case of problems
T

 

[EvilOzzmess]

Thanks for that. I tried applying the latest GPU Driver (ATI's 10.11) and I tried updating my WEI... it returned an error citing that it "couldn't check video playback quality" and then closed. Needless to say, I restored it back.

I did discover that my WLAN card needed an update through Intel's little automatic update wizard thing, so that's 1 out of potential dozens at least lol. I think I'm going to stop there however. It's not broke, so I'm going to try and not fix it - effectively actually breaking it.

But until functionality/performance takes a hit, I'm letting it alone.

 

[Tews]

If it aint broke, dont fix it..

 

[LiquidSnak]

But if you don't fix it, it won't break...

Once I get a system stable, I tend to not update drivers, etc. If it is running stable, I don't see a need to fix problems that don't exist

 

[mitchell65]

But if you don't fix it, it won't break...

Now that is surely a suitable thesis for a doctorate in????????