Dell drivers

I just bought a refurbished pc (Windows XP SP2) from dell and when it came i only got the operating system disk, no drivers disk.

I looked on dell's website to download the drivers incase I ever need to do a re-install or something. There were about 20-25 individual drivers to download, some saying urgent, some recommended and some optional.

Ok, stupid question time. Do i need to download all the drivers? should i download all the drivers? If not, which ones are critical if i ever needed to do a restore, just the urgent ones? how necessary are the ones that are recommended or optional?

I probably should be safe and download them all but i just wanted someones input who knew a little more then i did. Thanks!

Heres what im lookin at:

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...ID=PLX_PNT_P4_745&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=&impid=

 

The most important drivers to have on hand are;

Motherboard Chipset
Video (Display - Onboard or peripheral card)
Sound (Onboard or peripheral card)
LAN (NIC - Onboard or peripheral card)
Bios (To be used only when absolutely neccessary. ie; Hardware functionality. If things are working, leave it alone. Just keep it handy for possible future use. Sometimes an older version works better than the newer one which may be available "at the time".) Ensure you get the appropriate "Flash" utility recommended (with the bios download) if one exists. Some are "on the board", some not.

From there, grab any others that are in connection with any other major hardware components. (ie; (DELL) CDROM/DVD (firmware etc), modem, keyboard/mouse, etc.

Definitely grab any which are marked Urgent (and any associated with these such as utilities etc) Ensure you grab the ones for your hardware, as these proprietary systems come with assortments of different hardware makes. (You probably knew that but...)

 

Thanks much!! :wave

 

You're welcome.

 

Remember that any Dell pc can come in different configurations with different hardware installed.

Thus some of the drivers you see will not be applicable to yours and you don't need to download them. Some also will be different issue versions of the same software. You need the ones dated the same as your pc here.

To help with the selection, go to device manager and note the names/models/makes of the components.
Hold the windows key down and press break
on the Hardware tab choose device manager.

When you download the stuff from Dell you will need a little preparation as they offer several versions of the files. Set up a folder and component sub folders somewhere to direct the self unzipping files to or you will loose them on the hard drive.

If you screen resolution is already OK you probable have the drivers in a folder called drivers on your hard drive because for Dells you have to install the graphics driver right after Windows.

Well done for wanting to get stuff now, before any disaster.


Studio T

 

Thanks for the info! Very helpful.

Ok, another stupid question. Should i burn the drivers to a disk or can i put them on my flash drive?

 

We all live in the hope that archiving to cd is more permanent than flash drives or anything else - always use a good brand for important stuff. Use a CD not DVD, they are less reliable. Store it in the dark.

Studio T