What drivers should I use to update my mobo?

[bovinda]

When updating drivers for your mobo, it seems like often the mobo's drivers are not nearly as up-to-date as the individual's manufacturer's.

For example, the JMicron SATA driver on my mobo's site was last updated in April of 2007, but JMicron has put out many newer versions since then.

So should I use the one's on the mobo's site, because those have been tested and are stable? Or should I hunt down the individual driver's most up-to-date versions? Or some mixture of the two?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I use whatever is newer, and works.

 

[Rabbits]

Most manufacturers grab their drivers from a 3rd party site that originally had it. You'll know if its the right one if its working.

 

[bovinda]

Working meaning that it doesn't produce BSODs or other weirdness, right? It would be obvious if it didn't worked? Say for example, how would you know if your JMicron SATA driver didn't work - you couldn't access the hard drive, or a BSOD, or...what would you expect?

 

[The Keeper]

All hardware have their own (hopefully unique) IDs and driver inf files contain those IDs. Unless the IDs match, you can't install the driver. If the IDs match, the driver should work without problems. If it doesn't, usually it is displayed with a yellow or red mark in the device manager and the driver isn't loaded.

If the driver loads fine without errors and it doesn't work properly, then the possible errors it could produce could be anything. In the case of hard drive controller, I wouldn't keep a hard drive that contains important data plugged to the controller with possibly quirky driver. However unlikely, it is still possible that incorrect and yet seemingly working driver may cause data corruption.

In my case I've used drivers from JMicron site without problems on my Gigabyte P35 for a few weeks, but at that time I only had a DVD-drive connected to the controller.

 

[bovinda]

Thanks Keeper, I appreciated the explanation.