My pc needs new drivers, can you advise me please?

Hello! Despite reading up all I can find, I could still use a little guidance on where to find new drivers. My system is a pc made by Maxdata and their website is in German, so I have trouble finding drivers there. A recent scan indicated that there are updated drivers for: Realtek High Definition Audio, Intel(R) PRO/1000 PL Network Connection, Intel ® 82945G Express Chipset Family and Intel(R) 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller, as well as for my Samsung monitor.

Also I had downloaded DriverMax but never installed it because of the many negative (recent) opinions on how the program can potentially find rogue drivers. I am still very interested in a way to backup my drivers in case of disaster. Any advice on these two points would be most appreciated.

 

Do you already have drivers installed?

In most cases it is not necessary to update hardware drivers unless you are experiencing some kind of problem. On occasion there may be some added functionality but not very often.

 

If you are having issues, you could probably find the proper chipset Here

But as stated, if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

 

Uhm, I have heard the same advice elsewhere, and that's why I find this whole subject confusing. I am aware of the “tease-ware” nature of many free driver scans that later offer downloads for a fee, but I don't see why a large company like Intel would bother to update a driver if there was little value to the new version. :confused

Anyway, to answer your question, shnerdly, yes the drivers are installed, they are the original ones that came with my system. My second question, regarding software to back up the drivers, was prompted by a recent scare I had when it looked like I would have to do a fresh install. I know there are programs that find and back up drivers, I just don't know which ones are good.

Thanks for the link, brandypeppy. I see there is a Driver Update Utility (presumably reliable?!?). In case of problems, I understood that one can always roll back to the previous driver, or is it more complex than that?

As for issues, I did have a problem after installing a new USB microphone. The volume was too low (using Audacity) and in trying to fix this, I started having problems. The upshot was that any time I opened Realtek Audio Manager and then the Audio Devices tab, Recording, my system would crash. It was sudden but reproduceable. At about this time I discovered a trojan and after dealing with that and rolling back by a week, Realtek is behaving normally again but I have not yet tried the microphone again. I thought perhaps a new driver was needed. If I understand correctly, I should try the microphone and see what happens before doing anything, right?

 

Gawd, this is so depressing. I have just tested and the old problem is back. Here is what happens: with nothing else going on, I right-click on the Realtek icon in the notification tray, select Recording Devices, Recording. After a few seconds the system crashes and restarts, showing the message about an unexpected shutdown and giving options: Normal Mode, Safe Mode, Safe with Networking. The new microphone has been in its box for the last month, so I don't see a connection at this point. Where do I start? My pc was a custom build, Maxdata Favorit tower, ASUS P5LD2-VM motherboard. Everest report is attached. I have been running malware scans weekly and had a clean SAS quick scan only this morning.

 

Sorry, here is the report :-o

 

Virtually all of the drivers you would need for a reinstall of Windows could be found at the Asus site if your using all of the onboard devices. The only thing not included on the board is a modem so that would be the only thing you would have to search elsewhere for and your computer may not even have a modem.

The company you bought the computer from should have provided you with the driver disks for the mainboard and any addon devices they installed.

The problem with the USB Microphone may be driver related but I suspect a compatibility issue. I would check with the manufacturer to see if there are any known problems with any specific hardware.

 

Shnerdly, thanks for your answer. My system came with the original driver disks for ASUS motherboard, monitor, modem, the lot, so I do have them. :cool

A little update in case anyone else is struggling with the same problem: I have now re-run all the malware removal steps and got confirmation that my system is clean, so malware can be ruled out.

After much reading and tweaking, the new microphone is working. The low sound seems to be a universal issue with this USB mic (Behringer Studio Condenser C-1U). I have now achieved an acceptable result by setting the recording volume control to maximum in Audacity, and applying amplification to the recorded sound wave. The main change that cleaned up the sound quality (eliminating the muffled, underwater effect) was to separate the input jacks. My suspicion is that by having the input sources bundled and a cheapy mic plugged in the rear panel, this smaller mic was picking up ambient noise. This setting can be changed in Vista via Control Panel → Realtek HD Audio Manager → Device Advanced Settings (top right in blue). I also have boost applied to the mics that show in the Audio Manager (front and rear mics) but I am not sure if this is affecting the C-1U as it does not appear in the Audio Manager itself (although Audacity sees it). From the Behringer site I have downloaded the ASIO4ALL 2.10 (beta) driver which is supposed to work with Vista but have not tried installing it yet. There is one more issue: the mic light is always green (I have tried it in 8 different USB ports on 2 computers) whereas it is supposed to be blue. I have just contacted Behringer and am waiting for their response.

Putting the mic aside, Realtek is still crashing the system, from the icon in the system tray and also when I click on Sound and then Recording from the Control Panel. Although I can use Audacity and set the volume there, I would still like to get to the bottom of this glitch.

Looking for updated drivers, I have visited the ASUS site but can't get any sense out of it. The download helper does not install. I should stress that this pc is my only working system and internet link so I am nervous in case I mess everything up. A recent scan identified updated drivers by number but how do I know if they are the correct ones? Sorry for rambling on, I just feel I should be doing something but don't like the risk factor.

 

Halo, thanks for suggesting Double Driver … I'm off to check it out.