installing wrong drivers harm hardware?

[hydelloon]

Just have a simple question:

If you install the wrong drivers for a certain hardware, is there a possibility of the hardware being harmed or damaged in any way? (In my case it's the wlan drivers, but i'm curious for hardware such as gfx cards)

Thanks.

 

[Harvey]

The best written drivers will search for the appropriate hardware and stop the installation if it is not found. Some hardware could be damaged by installing the wrong drivers. It all depends on the hardware and the driver.

Conversely, there are cases where hardware can be made to perform better with a driver specified for a newer model and/or flashing the firmware (BIOS) with a verion intended for another model, but it is not something to attempt if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[oynaz]

Originally posted by: Harvey
Some hardware could be damaged by installing the wrong drivers.

That is highly unlikely. I suppose it is possible, but I cannot see it happen in any normal scenario. A driver which tries some funky overclocking could perhaps do stuff some damage?