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Get Your Drivers Here!

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Hello again!  Did everyone get their computer notebooks?  Is your notebook up-to-date?  It is?  Great!  Now we're going to have a little talk about...drivers.  No, I'm not talking about little blue-haired women or old-men in hats driving 45mph in the left lane.  I'm talking about drivers for your hardware.  

What's a driver?  Well, according to www.geek.com, the definition of a driver is "software that works to communicate between an operating system and a peripheral.   Think of it as a translator. If you use a crappy driver, your OS won't understand your video card and may become unstable and crash. Hardware manufacturers constantly update drivers to make them faster and more stable."

Makes sense?  My analogy is this: your video card speaks English, your motherboard speaks Spanish, and your operating system speaks French.  They don't understand each other.  A driver is the universal translator (remember Star Trek?) that tells each part how to work together to do their correct function.  

You've probably heard about drivers being "beta".  Think of a beta driver as a 4 year old learning to talk.  Now, hardware manufacturers are constantly upgrading their drivers.  Think of this as becoming fluent in the language: the more fluent they become, the more they are able to communicate clearly and faster.  So, in computer think, a manufacturer makes the beta driver and tests it.  As more people use the piece of hardware, the manufacturer finds that they need to "tweak" it to make it better, use less computer resources, and work more effectively.

Ok, you're probably thinking...so what!?  Here's why you should care: when you use out of date drivers, you're making all the parts of your system work less effectively.  Your computer could crash because of incompatibilities.  But you may not notice anything wrong at all...for awhile.

Here's an example:  I got Diablo 2.  I installed it, rebooted, and then fired the game up.  And nothing.  It wouldn't even start!  So I checked with PuterGeek, and he reminded me to check for an updated video driver. (DUH!)  I went to Nvidia's website and sure enough, there was an updated driver that I failed to catch.  I installed the newest drivers and WHAM!  The game started.  Yee-haw....until I noticed that my sound wasn't sounding quite right and some options were grayed out.  Hmmm....I next went to Diabloii.net's forum and saw other people mentioning the same problem with their Sound Blaster Live card.  So now I went to Creative Lab's website and lo and behold! there was an updated sound card driver!!  Once I updated my sound card driver, I had all the options and had no problems with the game!  Amazing huh?  All this time I've had no problems but then a problem came up behind and bit me in the butt.

Here's the moral to the story: check your drivers!  

WARNING: Read the readme.txt files when you download or look for new drivers!!  I can't stress this enough.  Let me repeat myself: Read the readme.txt files when you download or look for new drivers!!   

Hardware manufacturers can, and will, have specific instructions on how to install their drivers.  If you just love to fubar your system, lose data, and wipe/reinstall, then ignore their instructions!!!  For example: when you update your video card drivers, you must follow certain specific steps in the correct order.  The readme will tell you these steps.  (Gee, isn't that nice of them?  So listen to them! Please!)  Here's the short version how to change your video drivers:

1. Download the most current driver and remember where you saved it to.

2. Unzip it if necessary and read the readme.txt - print it out if you need to for reference.

3. Change your video driver to "Standard VGA".  If you need more help with this, contact PuterGeek.

4. Reboot the computer. Warning: when you fully reboot, your screen will be changed to 640x480 with 16 glorious colors.  Don't wig out!  This is what is supposed to happen.  It will get better once you install the updated driver.

5. Follow the rest of the install instructions in the readme.  

6. Reboot.

7. Now change your screen settings depending on what resolution you have your monitor set at.

Now, you should check for updated drivers, oh, every month or so or if you have a problem.  Keep track of when you checked last in your notebook!  When you update a driver, write it down with the date and the version of the newest driver.

One last thing.  When was the last time you checked for newest versions of software/programs?  Hmmm...caught ya on that one didn't I?  Hee Hee  Here's a link which I love.  It checks not only your hardware but also your software and tells you if there are updated versions!!  I use this since I'm lazy in this regard.  Once I see that there is an update, I then go to the hardware/software company's page to get the updates! Why?  Well, there will be more information on what the update does, who should download it, what it costs if any, and any special instructions.  This is especially critical when it's an update or file from Microsoft.  Also, there are no guarantees that these updates are correct or for you.  This is strictly a tool to use to save time and effort. I use Updates.com from ZDNet.  It scans your computer (don't get paranoid on me Scully!) and will tell you what it found.

Another good link that I use is Windrivers.com.  It has links to, I think, all hardware manufactures web sites.  It can save you time by helping you find the correct website for your particular piece of hardware.

Well, folks, that's it for this edition.  It sure is easier to make these up when you can use all the fingers on your left hand!  I'm glad I finally got that darn cast off.  (Thank you PuterGeek for cutting it off...with my orthopedist's permission of course!)  Remember, do a little bit of maintenance on your computer and it will work just a little nicer and faster.  If anyone else has links to sites that help them with installing drivers or how-to's, send it to me and I'll amend this page.  Until next time....now it's back to Diablo 2!

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Last Revised: 10/20/2000

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Thanks for the help Thomas!