Is "Install All Drivers" feature on ASUS motherboard CD safe?

[andy_pandy]

I always heard it is not recommended to install multiple drivers at once as it may conflict with other drivers. Yet, ASUS have this feature on their motherboard CD which allow installing multiple drivers at the same time.


I went to install Intel Rapid Storage Technology, ASmedia RAID, Intel USB 3.0, and they all had a warning message on the installation screen saying It is very important that I exit any running programs. Yet, ASUS InstALL is running. Any thoughts?

Any thoughts, guys n' girls?

 

[jkauff]

Once you've done this, don't forget to go to the Asus support site for your motherboard and download any updates. They don't update the disc AFAIK.

You're also perfectly safe going to Intel and downloading even newer drivers. I've never had a problem after doing this.

 

[Kougar]

I'd suggest just downloading them from the website directly... even for brand new launches there will be drivers out of date the moment you open that shiny new box

 

[tcsenter]

And for that matter, get them from the chip or device vendor website directly (if available). ASUS usually doesn't keep even the drivers on its website up-to-date.

 

[Zap]

I'm a bit wary of the "install all" because with Gigabyte and ASRock I've had 3 month trials of some Norton stuff installed, along with some other things.

 

[crashtech]

Downloading drivers from the mfr website almost always results in improved functionality, although it is obviously more time consuming.

 

[dawp]

And for that matter, get them from the chip or device vendor website directly (if available). ASUS usually doesn't keep even the drivers on its website up-to-date.

sometimes you can find newer drivers for on-board devices for your board by looking at newer boards, such as the just released z87 boards that have the same devices like the realtek sound chips.

 

[Alan G]

If you have a second 'working' computer, go to the manufacturer's website and download all the drivers to a USB thumb drive and then install them. This way you get the most current driver from the get go. The ASUS site is a little more complicated than Gigabyte in my experience as they list all previous driver versions which can lead one astray in terms of what is current and what is legacy.

 

[NickelPlate]

I'm a bit wary of the "install all" because with Gigabyte and ASRock I've had 3 month trials of some Norton stuff installed, along with some other things.

Agreed. I do them individually unless I'm confident that the "install all" option doesn't install a bunch of other garbageware, trials, monitoring apps etc I don't want. But seems you almost always get more than just drivers.

 

[jiffylube1024]

I'd suggest just downloading them from the website directly... even for brand new launches there will be drivers out of date the moment you open that shiny new box

+1. Asus virtually always has new bios firmware revisions on their website, and it's good to download the latest drivers as well. It's a good habit to get in to with new boards, especially because new drivers often fix problems and/or increase performance.

 

[jkauff]

I think the OP was concerned if it was "safe" to install "All Drivers" from the CD. I don't see anything unsafe about doing that, as long you immediately download the updates. I'm not thrilled with all of the Asus AI Suite, for example, but it sure makes it easy to update the BIOS.

 

[tcsenter]

sometimes you can find newer drivers for on-board devices for your board by looking at newer boards, such as the just released z87 boards that have the same devices like the realtek sound chips.

You can always get the latest driver for Realtek products from Realtek's own website, even for it's network controllers (wired and wireless), and card reader chip products. Realtek's driver may not enable support for some (very few) premium features such as Dolby Live! Encoding or DTS support, which are licensed to the board manufacturer and enabled through their own customized driver (the driver binaries are the same, just some setup files are modified to enable the advanced features).

When worse came to worse, I've even spent hours mining the FTP server or support portals (e.g. ASUS, Dell, or HP/Compaq) in order to find newer drivers or utilities that are not posted to the model's support/download page (but perhaps a different model) where tech support claims 'no newer drivers', and which are not released publicly by the chip/device manufacturer. e.g. ADI's premium audio chips, ATI's Mobility Radeon display drivers for laptops, Marvell's storage controllers, Atheros and Broadcom wireless LAN chips, et. al.

 

[mikeymikec]

I do driver installs individually starting with the most important - chipset, ahci, network, graphics, etc. If things start acting weird, it's a very good chance that it's the driver you last installed.

I also avoid the extra utilities provided by a board manufacturer. Windows tends to work better with a minimalist approach.

 

[Melina42]

+1. Asus virtually always has new bios firmware revisions on their website, and it's good to download the latest drivers as well. It's a good habit to get in to with new boards, especially because new drivers often fix problems and/or increase performance.

I dunno, my experience with Asus is new drivers and BIOS updates are at high risk of introducing unfixable problems, and may even kill your motherboard outright.

Don't fix it if it ain't broke, always the best policy.

 

[Kougar]

I think the OP was concerned if it was "safe" to install "All Drivers" from the CD. I don't see anything unsafe about doing that, as long you immediately download the updates. I'm not thrilled with all of the Asus AI Suite, for example, but it sure makes it easy to update the BIOS.

In that case, I would say it wasn't. Generally things don't seem to care, but even with my new 4770K build I installed a bunch of drivers until one prompted me to reboot. Figuring it was an unrelated device I then install the ASUS Xonar DX driver (knowing it also required a reboot and wanting to save some time) which proceeded to hang during the initialization phase. It could just be that one driver since I've always had trouble with it, but a reboot later it installed without a hitch.

If nothing else the chipset driver and Intel ME driver should probably be installed first followed by a reboot, before installing the rest.