Should I intstall my motherboard drivers?

[Josh7289]

My rig is exactly described in my sig, so I won't relist everything here, but currently I have my Nvidia video card drivers installed, but none of the ATI drivers for my RS480/SB400 chipset. Is this a problem? And if so, how do I go about installing both the Nvidia video card drivers and the ATI chipset drivers at the same time?

Thanks.

 

[GrammatonJP]

You download your mobo driver and install it, reboot, download the nvidia driver and install..

Unless you dont have a bunch of "?" in device manager, its good to install the drivers.. as they enable some features for the motherboard to work

 

[sniperruff]

you NEED to install your motherboard drivers if there is one. the order you should install your drivers are:

1) mobo
2) video
3) USB
4) sound

but #1 and #2 are essential

 

[Josh7289]

But what exactly are the drivers? And where do I get them?

 

[Markbnj]

The drivers are small system files that Windows XP uses to communicate with various special purpose chips in the motherboard chipset. These might be Ethernet NICs, DMA controllers, whatever. When you first install the mobo Windows might be able to communicate with these chips using default drivers, or it may not. Most commonly it can, using a baseline API, but many enhanced or proprietary features may not be enabled. For example, on my Gigabyte K8NS Ultra-939 the nForce ethernet adapter works fine without an added driver, but the Marvel gigabit NIC does not.

Typically you get the drivers from either the motherboard manufacturer, or from the chipset manufacturer, i.e. nVidia or whomeever.

 

[Josh7289]

That wasn't what I was asking. I meant, what exactly are the drivers I need for my motherboard? It's an IGP board, so I don't want the full Catalyst Suite interfering with my Nvidia drivers.

 

[ForumMaster]

the drivers is essintial for the computer to work right. a driver is basically an .ini file that tell windows how to "talk" with your computer. after reinstalling windows and just before installing the graphic driver, you can see how the computer works without a driver. everything delays and none of the effects work. without drivers, your IDE,SATA, USB and other things may not work properly. i would recomend reinstalling windows, then installing the chipset drivers, then the graphic drivers, then the sound and other drivers. check in the device manager to know what if any devices don't have a driver installed. those parts will have a yellow question mark near them.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Josh7289
My rig is exactly described in my sig, so I won't relist everything here, but currently I have my Nvidia video card drivers installed, but none of the ATI drivers for my RS480/SB400 chipset. Is this a problem? And if so, how do I go about installing both the Nvidia video card drivers and the ATI chipset drivers at the same time?

Thanks.

Go to ATI's site and download chipset drivers for the RS480/SB400.
Install them.
Reboot.
Be happy.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: sniperruff
you NEED to install your motherboard drivers if there is one. the order you should install your drivers are:

1) mobo
2) video
3) USB
4) sound

but #1 and #2 are essential

There are not typically drivers for USB anymore with XP

 

[Bozo Galora]

When you install XP (with a late mobo like yours - with SP2 slipstreamed) windows will try to find something relevant, and load generic MS chipset drivers.
If your system is up and running, I would leave them and NOT install ATI chipset drivers
which may include
SATA/SATA RAID
IDE
IDE Busmaster
Lan
USB
firewire

and under system devives in device manager
CPU-PCI bridge
AGP-PCI bridge
PCI-PCI bridge
(or PCIe - I'm too lazy to look up your mobo)

Same advice for NF4

So if you want a trouble free system - MS drivers are the way to go.
All you have to do is look at driver tabs of listed stuff to see whats installed now