I used to use DriverAgent a while back, to update drivers other than my video card. It's been a while since I really looked into something similar and I know how devastating updating the wrong driver can be. Any suggestions other than looking at piece by piece and updating at manufacturer's sites?
Updating Drivers? The best way?
- Thread starter Shegokigo
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I've never done it any other way, sorry. Aside from letting Windows Update handle it for me, that is.
--Patrick
I primarily use DriverPacks.net when I'm rebuilding XP machines - they have Vista/Win7 drivers for download, but I haven't tried them yet.
Warning - if you're behind a corp firewall or some place that blocks it, they only use torrents for downloading.
Warning - if you're behind a corp firewall or some place that blocks it, they only use torrents for downloading.
GasBandit
Staff member
For non-video card drivers... I usually just go to the manufacturer's website. If it's a random NIC or something I found in a pile, I look up its pci vendor code at pcidatabase.com .. you can find the vendor number in the device manager, properties, details tab. It'll say something like PCI\VEN_1317&DEV_0985, which works out to be a Linksys NC100 Fast Ethernet Adapter. Download drivers from Linksys' website, and boom.
For video drivers, I download the new ones to desktop, uninstall the old ones, reboot, use driversweeper to get 100% rid of leftover files, reboot again, install new drivers, reboot one more time. Time and experience have taught me that, yes, all the stupid rebooting IS needed. Grumble grumble.
For video drivers, I download the new ones to desktop, uninstall the old ones, reboot, use driversweeper to get 100% rid of leftover files, reboot again, install new drivers, reboot one more time. Time and experience have taught me that, yes, all the stupid rebooting IS needed. Grumble grumble.
figmentPez
Staff member
Yes, you'd think that after more than a decade of promising "no more reboots needed!" there'd be some progress made. What really gets me is that manually removing old driver files is still necessary. It's moronic that a driver install program can't set things up properly without outside help. I've had some pretty serious video problems that were fixed by deleting old driver files that weren't automatically removed.
GasBandit
Staff member
Yes, it drives me up the goddamned wall. I hate updating video drivers. I'm not sure if it's microsoft's fault, or Nvidia/ATI's fault that for some reason their driver DLLs are quadruple protected from overwrite and deletion. Once I even had to uninstall and then reboot into SAFE MODE to make sure they were gone. Sonsabitches kept COMING BACK after deletion.
Once I find a set that work, those things get saved to the archive partition so I always have them for reinstall. My house may be a disaster, but my reinstall directory has all the drivers saved up along with a text file with step-by-step instructions on what has to be installed, in what order, which configuration boxes need to be checked/unchecked, etc.
That way, when my motherboard manufacturers go under*, I still have everything locally. I suppose I only have myself to blame for choosing components that last.
--Patrick
*Just Soltek and Iwill, so far. ASRock and Apple are still in business.
That way, when my motherboard manufacturers go under*, I still have everything locally. I suppose I only have myself to blame for choosing components that last.
--Patrick
*Just Soltek and Iwill, so far. ASRock and Apple are still in business.
figmentPez
Staff member
It can make a difference. A while back I was getting BSODs when playing games, and every Source engine game would crash while closing. The issues didn't go away until I uninstalled the drivers, deleted the temp files and deleted every folder labeled "ATI" I could find in the Windows driver folder. I can't remember if I had to edit the registry or not. (I'm guessing that someone has already mentioned a program that does all that automagically. )
Depends on how many old/obsolete .dll's you want lying around. New drivers (and new driver installers) are not always programmed to find and remove/update all the older files and registry entries from every conceivable previous release. That means there are times when your new driver is still invoking v3.06 of some .dll instead of v3.2 just because some installer programmer forgot to unprotect the old version before he tried overwriting it with the new one.
It happens just enough to be annoying. I recently had to do this with Flash since I could get every website except one to play Flash video, no matter how much I uninstalled/reinstalled. Turned out there was some folder down in my application data that I had to nuke.
--Patrick
It happens just enough to be annoying. I recently had to do this with Flash since I could get every website except one to play Flash video, no matter how much I uninstalled/reinstalled. Turned out there was some folder down in my application data that I had to nuke.
--Patrick
Maybe. Only thing you'll lose by trying would be your custom profiles and the time it takes to do the installs. There's no guarantee. If you're really serious about trying it, make a complete system backup before you run your experiments so you won't accidentally get stuck with something worse. 
--Patrick
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
My rule is if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I suppose there's always a chance you could maybe get a less-than-10% improvement in framerate (because newer drivers often boast of such things), but you also might already be getting it.
Generally, if you're not locking up/bluescreening/crashing out of D3D applications, I wouldn't worry about it. You might have some residual driver files still on your system, but they're apparently not hurting you.
However, if you DO ever start to experience video issues such as described above, then the triple-reboot-driver-scrubadub is pretty much your best first resort (next resort usually being either OS reinstall or Hardware replacement).
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