Drivers Updates Necessary?

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by sportsfan7700, Jul 20, 2010.

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  1. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    I have a Lenovo Windows Vista 32bit
    Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2180 [at] 2.00GHz
    2 GB Ram, 500 GB HD and since installing service pack 2 I always get a popup saying drivers need to be updated. The only drivers I have are from the lenovo cd that came with the computer. The PC was bought in Nov. 06.

    -Do they need updating?
    -is there a place on the internet where it will not only scan but allow me to fix the drivers for free? (I could pay a small fee but prefer to see if there are freewares available)

    Matt
     
  2. dw426

    dw426 Registered Member

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    Does Windows Update ever give you any driver updates to install? Mine occasionally does. Hardware driver updates don't come around as much as software updates, vendors generally leave well enough alone unless there is a vulnerability or serious bug. That being said, you can always run something like BelArc Advisor, get vendor names of your hardware and head to their respective websites for a look. Lenovo may even have updates for their product models on their own websites. I really don't mess with updating them myself, again, unless something comes up.
     
  3. Cudni

    Cudni Global Moderator

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    I would check for the driver updates, start with Lenovo site as suggested earlier
     
  4. Seer

    Seer Registered Member

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    Windows repositories often have updated drivers for your hardware, so it's not a surprise a driver newer than yours from '06. was found.

    But just so we could clarify this a bit. Which drivers are you talking about (chipset, video, audio)? Laptops have quite a bit of devices built-in, you know. what says the popup exactly? What kind of popup is that? Is it from a resident app in your tray (i.e. OEM driver updater) or is it a native Windows popup (i.e. from Windows Automatic Updates)?

    And just a note - when messing with drivers, you always need to ask yourself "do I have an updated image of my system partition?"
     
  5. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    Seer, all of the above. I went to lenovo's site and created a downloads directory for them and every one of them installed except the ATI driver which was not needed. I'm surprised I at least did not get a prompt saying they were outdated sooner.

    To be honest, I'm not sure where the pop up was from. I suspect an OEM from lenovo but I am uncertain. Windows has given me updates for the monitor (an AOC 19", but not sure further then that).

    When I rebooted the message was "Windows couldn't find driver software for the device". I downloaded everything that was required from Lenovo, I wonder why I'm still getting this pop up.
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2010
  6. John Bull

    John Bull Registered Member

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    I asked about driver updating in a previous thread.

    The responses were as always extremely helpful and discussed the subject in detail.

    OK for the professional gymnasts, but my own attitude is that unless MS Windows and other programs automatically update my drivers, then they stay as they are.

    I have played with a PC for only a mere 6 years and in all that time I have never updated a single driver. If the program suppliers have, then "Make my Day".

    In all this time I have never to my knowledge had a driver problem. It all comes back to that vital piece of advice from the veterans - "If it is working OK, LEAVE IT ALONE !" or "Don`t pick it, it`ll never get better"

    John B
     
  7. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    It's just an inconvenience when you can't seem to understand why even though you have taken the steps the message appears.
     
  8. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    Seer, not sure if I clarified, this is a desktop.
     
  9. ABee

    ABee Registered Member

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    For the 'Windows can't find drivers for this device' message, you can look in the Device Manager for any devices that either have an 'X' next to them (meaning the device is not installed properly) or a '?' (meaning there's no driver installed or some other issue).

    Open up 'Properties' for any such devices and look to see whatever details or other info is offered.

    For the 'driver updates' message, you can look in Task Manager to see what's running. Apparently one of those processes is monitoring driver software.
    The name of the process might be a clue, or you may have to go through a process of elimination (so to speak) to determine which process it is and what program or software it belongs to.
     
  10. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    Think I found the issue. My HP Printer drivers came uninstalled so I will try this & report back.
     
  11. sportsfan7700

    sportsfan7700 Registered Member

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    I uninstalled the "unknown device" (not sure what it was) through device manager and my printer prints so I guess it was not that big of a deal. Thanks to all that helped :)
     
  12. microbial

    microbial Registered Member

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    HP are notoriously slow in updating drivers. I run a DV5 1110em and by using DriverMax Pro I've managed to update at least 12 drivers. Some of HP's listed drivers are positively ancient!
     
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