What is the proper way to update motherboard chipset drivers?

[littlewing]

My specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice
1gb Corsair VS ram
MSI 6800 vanilla 128mb stock (325/600)

My question is what is the best method to update the drivers for my motherboard and video card. Would updating the BIOS also help for the mobo and vid. card?

The latest nvidia drivers from MSI are the 76.45 drivers that I have. I was told to only use drivers provided by your manufacturer by people in forums. Same with the motherboard chipset drivers, the latest I have is v. 6.39 for the nforce4 chipset provided by Chaintech, the manufacturer of my motherboard.

More questions:

1Should I install the latest drivers from Nvidia or stick the drivers supplied by the manufacturers of both units?

2. How would I install the latest motherboard drivers? What is the best procedure and what filters do I use in Driver Cleaner?

3.When I install the chipset drivers to I uninstall both the previous chipset drivers and the display drivers?

4.Should I flash the motherboard or video card bios? I heard it is dangerous?

 

[littlewing]

anyone?

 

[dew042]

Don't update drivers unless you have a particular need. If you have no apparent probelms leave well enough alone.....


dew.

 

[RedCOMET]

Originally posted by: dew042
Don't update drivers unless you have a particular need. If you have no apparent probelms leave well enough alone.....


dew.

I think the same can be said also about the BIOS. why fix it if it isn't broke.

 

[xTYBALTx]

Originally posted by: dew042
Don't update drivers unless you have a particular need. If you have no apparent probelms leave well enough alone.....


dew.

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: RedCOMET

Originally posted by: dew042
Don't update drivers unless you have a particular need. If you have no apparent probelms leave well enough alone.....


dew.

I think the same can be said also about the BIOS. why fix it if it isn't broke.

your right, so I guess I should have stuck with my 4.0 catalyst drivers because everything is "perfectly fine"....:roll:

Look, go to your chipset manufacturer and download the lastest chipset drivers. Besure to uninstall the old ones first and I say chipset driver manufacture and not motherboard manufacturer is because MOBO companies tend to have crappier chipset drivers/update them more slowly...

 

[littlewing]

Should I uninstall just he chipset drivers, or uninstall the display drivers as well? Should I use driver cleaner? What filters should I use?


thanks

 

[imported_goku]

lol the display drivers thing was unrelated and I was just being a smart ass... yes just uninstall the chipset drivers and most likely want to restart, (be sure to have downloaded the updated chipset drivers first before uninstalling). Restart and install..

 

[littlewing]

so no driver cleaner then?

 

[littlewing]

?

 

[volrath]

Just do it. If something breaks use system restore. I can't imagine any serious problems. Then again, I just run MSI Live Update and all my drivers get updated. Never had any problems. Especially not with video card drivers. I always download the latest drivers from nvidia.com and install them. No fuss with uninstall and driver cleaner.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: littlewing
Should I uninstall just he chipset drivers, or uninstall the display drivers as well? Should I use driver cleaner? What filters should I use?


thanks

For chipset drivers I see no need to uninstall old ones b4 "upgrading" to the new ones.

OTOH, it's prolly better to uninstall the old gfx drivers before installing the new ones (not absolutely neccessary but you'll have to be careful about the "updating file" messages and the possibility of "mixing" driver versions together. That makes problems )

IMHO, no need to use driver cleaner unless (1) you're switching from ATI > nVidia (or vice versa), or (2) things gets FUBAR'd and you you wanna clean-out and start over.

As to the mobo or chipset drivers. I prefer the updated chipset drivers issued by nVidia. But you gotta be careful, some mobo's use different drivers for audio etc. Usually, the nVidia driver page has details about this stuff.

Fern

 

[birdpup]

Updating drivers for the motherboard is not dangerous like updating the BIOS can be. Updating the motherboard drivers is similar to uninstalling and reinstalling drivers for other components. When you wish to update a driver, you just uninstall first, reboot the system if it is MS Windows, then install the new drivers. Like someone mentioned, you want to download the new drivers first because your onboard ethernet may not work after uninstalling the chipset drivers.

Check the motherboard manufacturer for the chipset drivers they provide and consider these first over the chipset manufacturer's drivers since the motherboard manufacturer may package other drivers within the chipset driver. Also chipset manufacturers often provide different drivers for a specific motherboard to the motherboard manufacturer than is generically provided for all motherboards.

Additionally, once the driver package is decompressed, there should be an installation instruction file provided for reference. Look for a textfile titled "README", "install", or something similar. These instructions are often important to read through before installation.

What is a driver cleaner? This sounds like a scam.

 

[littlewing]

Driver Cleaner is definitely not a scam.

 

[littlewing]

MSI is seriously lagging with the Forceware drivers. THey are stuck on 76.45 while nvidia is at 77.72.

 

[Fern]

Most all mobo manufacturers lag (I've noticed the same with Abit and Chaintech etc). That's why it's recommended to get those drivers from nVidia or whomever makes the chipset.