Why update drivers?

dmb06851 · Apr 3, 2010

I have received an offer from a well-known software house whose products are well respected. I am well satisfied with those of theirs which I have.

The offer is for a driver manager which will "back up, restore, and update your drivers automatically", and "remove invalid drivers to improve system performance".

My PC, scanner and printer all work well, as does the audio in and out. Why should I update any drivers? NVidia issues new drivers for the graphics card every now and then but since I am satisfied with the graphics why should I bother?

Back up and restoration ... well, maybe.

Invalid drivers? Doubtful. CCleaner and IObit's Advanced System Care Pro should take care of any left-overs.

But it seems to me that there's an awful lot of fuss made about drivers, and unnecessary fuss at that.

So what, if anything, am I missing (other than another neurosis)?

DavidGP · Apr 3, 2010

Hi

I agree with you too much fuss made of drivers and updating them, the only ones to really update are Graphics and possibly Network, the others do very well on their own, so once a PC is working well only driver to in honesty update is graphics, but even this only if you are a gamer as the updates do tend to favour gamers and copatability with games more than every day usage.

The old adage works "why fix what is not broken"

I do however think that backup of drivers is a worthwhile option for an an application as once you have your PC working well with drivers all installed, why not back them up for later restore in case you have to re-install Windows.

Its the update bit that really gets me as there are too many permutations to OEM PCs and their drivers to really get this 100% correct, all the driver updaters in essence do is find close matches to unified drivers, which in the case of Audio is why we have too many audio driver issues on forums.

If you have an offer to test, to be honest if you are the type like me that loves to test (been doing Microsoft apps for years, in the internal beta test groups) why not give it a go and give them honest feedback to if it works or not.

dmb06851 · Apr 3, 2010

Thank you for the response. It confirms that there's nothing to get really excited about.

As far as reinstalling the operating system goes, it's something I have had to resign myself to doing a few times.
I had drivers on a c.d. which accompanied the motherboards (original and upgrade) in my first PC.
When I recently replaced it with a second hand one a c.d. didn't come with it. Belarc's Advisor coughed up the information I needed to download relevant drivers which I have (I'm sure :confused - better check) put on a c.d. "just in case".

Thank you once again.

augiedoggie · Apr 3, 2010

Ya, 'updateitis' is a prevalent disease. As Halo said, if it works... I've only updated drivers if it should fix an issue that I have. Video drivers updates are the only ones for me too and not ever from MS updates either or the same day of the release! Let someone else blow up their machines first!

A sad release by nVidia just recently, 196.21, fried people's GPU's because the fan speed was set to %20. It's quite a rare occurrence but it happens. Don't bother with the updater S/W, read the changelog and see if you need it.

My best update ever was installing a dual core on my originally single cored motherboard. Updated the chipset drivers first and then the BIOS as stated. What an upgrade!:celebrateAnd affordable too as my original CPU was $200 and the Dual was only $90.:cool

DavidGP · Apr 3, 2010

dmb06851 said: ↑

Thank you for the response. It confirms that there's nothing to get really excited about.

As far as reinstalling the operating system goes, it's something I have had to resign myself to doing a few times.
I had drivers on a c.d. which accompanied the motherboards (original and upgrade) in my first PC.
When I recently replaced it with a second hand one a c.d. didn't come with it. Belarc's Advisor coughed up the information I needed to download relevant drivers which I have (I'm sure :confused - better check) put on a c.d. "just in case".

Thank you once again.
Click to expand...

HI

Yeah no exciting stuff here, but I agree with you if you have the install driver CD that goes with the mobo then your are set, maybe you could look at the OEM site and if they have newer drivers update them but unless your are having and issue its not crucial.

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Why update drivers?

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DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member