How Long Does It Take To Update Drivers

Talk to any tech person, read any forum, and at some point yous're certain to exist told to update your drivers… only what does that really hateful? And is information technology necessary to compulsively update your drivers? Here's our take.

Drivers? What Are Drivers?

In very simple terms, drivers are estimator programs that let Windows and your other applications interact with a hardware device. Your computer doesn't natively know how to use all the features of your video carte du jour—it needs a driver to do that. Just like computer programs have updates and service packs to fix bugs and add features, drivers do besides.

When Should Y'all Update Your Drivers?

Rule: Don't fix what isn't cleaved.

If you've got a problem with a device, you should think about upgrading the drivers. If y'all're looking for a speed heave, updating your drivers to the latest version isn't a magical speed enhancement that will of a sudden remove the demand to upgrade a slow PC. If you're upgrading from one version of a driver to another version, chances are skilful that the only things included in those updates are bug fixes for specific scenarios, and maybe some very minor functioning increases. In that location's more chance of breaking something than annihilation else, then if everything on your PC is working just fine, you can skip the commuter updates for the well-nigh function.

There's a notable exception to this rule, of course. If yous're trying to eke out every tiny bit of performance out of your system, yous should brand sure that your video menu drivers are updated using the manufacturer's drivers, and you probably desire to upgrade your chipset, networking, and sound carte du jour drivers as well. Switching from the built-in Windows drivers for your video card to the official NVidia or ATI/AMD drivers will make a world of difference, and keeping them updated can yield huge speed gains.

Essentially, if y'all've got an AMD/ATI or NVidia video card, and you're using the born Windows drivers, that'south a corking time to switch drivers. Otherwise, most people can skip the process entirely.

Which Drivers Should You Update?

Rule: Use the right drivers, not simply the latest ones.

When you first become a new PC, reload Windows on an sometime PC, or build a new PC, you're going to want to make sure that you are using the correct drivers. Information technology's not and then much that y'all'll need to proceed the drivers updated to the very latest version all the time, information technology'southward that you don't desire to be using some generic driver when you lot could be using the real commuter. For instance: video carte drivers included in Windows rarely include all the features of the drivers you can download from NVidia or AMD/ATI, and they definitely don't include the same speed enhancements.

Whatever you practise, don't utilise some driver update software when you can manually option the right drivers easily.

Off the Shelf PC

If you're running an off-the-shelf PC or laptop and haven't reloaded Windows manually, chances are practiced that most of your drivers are already using the manufacturer'south approved drivers. This includes things like chipset, motherboard, sound card, and the similar. At that place's besides a really adept chance that you have some onboard generic video carte. Your best bet is to upgrade your video card drivers by heading to the manufacturer's site, though you could simply use the Upgrade commuter characteristic built into Windows and explained below.

Once more, if everything is working just fine on your PC, you lot should probably leave your drivers alone.

Fresh Windows Install / Congenital Your Ain PC / Gamer

If yous either built your ain PC or loaded a fresh version of Windows, yous're currently using the Microsoft-approved drivers included in Windows, which aren't ever going to be the fastest choice, specially if yous have a real video card. This is a scenario in which you'll want to update these drivers:

Video Carte: The difference in speed betwixt the generic Windows drivers for your video card and the official NVidia or ATI/AMDdrivers volition surprise y'all. Even if you aren't a gamer, make sure you lot have the real drivers.
Motherboard/Chipset: you'll want to make certain to head to the manufacturer's site and grab their chipset drivers. If you lot bought a PC, head to their site, if yous built ane, go to the motherboard manufacturer's site. Every installer is unlike, but in full general, you can just run the downloaded driver.
Sound Card:the native Windows drivers won't include all the actress sound features like virtual surround, etc. If you bought a PC, head to their site, if you congenital one, either become to the motherboard manufacturer'southward site for onboard audio, or the sound card manufacturer's web site otherwise.
Network Card: most likely you're using some type of onboard carte that's part of the motherboard, and you already grabbed the drivers from there.

If you're a gamer, yous'll probably want to brand sure to go along your video card drivers updated regularly.

Checking Your Commuter Versions

When you lot're having bug with a device, it can be very helpful to know what version of the commuter you lot're using, especially if y'all're posting on a forum, or reading a thread somewhere virtually a problem that was fixed in a particular driver update.

To check the driver version, only open Device Managing director using the Start Menu search box, discover the driver in the listing, right-click and choose Properties. You'll be able to see the version data and date on the Driver tab. You tin also update, curl back, disable, or uninstall a commuter from this view, which comes in very handy if you upgraded your drivers and introduced a problem.

Updating Your Drivers the (Safe) Microsoft Mode

If y'all are having a problem with a particular device, you lot tin can chop-chop upgrade to a newer version by opening Device Manager, correct-clicking on the device, and choosing Update Driver Software.

This will pop up a wizard that lets you either search Windows Update or your PC for the latest drivers—or yous tin can manually install the drivers past using the Browse option.

If you let Windows automatically update, it'll install correct abroad and inquire you to reboot. If it fixes your problem, great—if not, you tin ever whorl back the driver.

Updating Your Drivers with the Manufacturer Drivers

For the most part, when yous download drivers from somewhere similar NVidia or AMD/ATI, they volition have an entire commuter installation wizard included in the download, so yous'll just run that to upgrade the drivers to the latest version. If you lot happen to observe a driver (perhaps for a device that is giving you an fault) that is in a null file, y'all can use the wizard screen in a higher place and choose the Browse selection. This will show a window like this, where you can specify the folder that you lot unzipped the drivers to.

Final thought: If your computer is working fine, don't use this commodity as a reason to become intermission it. Or at least, don't blame us if you lot do =)