Driver Updaters

[Cianoo]

I am trying to find a free, reliable driver updater, but I am having some trouble. Any suggestions?

[IkeaGnome]

For what driver? The most free and easiest way is to update through the manufacturer's website. Seems like a lot of the updaters that people download cause more headache than they solve. 

[Cianoo]

I'm not sure, I'm just afraid that I'll have to go through the headache of thinking I broke my PC and spending $100 on a diagnosis just for it to be outdated drivers.

[IkeaGnome]

1 minute ago, Cianoo said:

I'm not sure, I'm just afraid that I'll have to go through the headache of thinking I broke my PC and spending $100 on a diagnosis just for it to be outdated drivers.

Quote with the arrow at the bottom left of a post and the person will get a notification that you replied.

Typically, the graphics card is the only thing with drivers that get updated regularly. What parts are in your computer?

[Middcore]

Driver updater programs exist in a Dunning-Kreuger liminal space, aimed at people who think they know about computers because they know there is such a thing as "drivers," but who don't actually know enough about computers to realize such utilities are unnecessary at best.

 

As @IkeaGnome said, out of all the components in a typical PC, only the GPU will get or require regular driver updates. 

[coreygibson]

28 minutes ago, Cianoo said:

I am trying to find a free, reliable driver updater, but I am having some trouble. Any suggestions?

Might not be exactly what you are looking for, I use Snappy Driver Installer for new rigs and im pretty sure it can update drivers as well.

[TetraSky]

https://www.driverscloud.com/en/start

That's the one I typically use (use adblock).

But these days, without Windows 10 or 11, the majority of your drivers will auto update.

 

The only drivers you should be installing manually, are your GPU drivers and your Chipset drivers. That's it. If you have a dedicated soundcard, there's that too, but if it's onboard, no need and windows's generic drivers are enough.

[GuiltySpark_]

When it comes to those getting into PC's and who aren't very knowledgeable yet, i've found an overwhelming amount of them get incredibly hung up on "drivers" as if they're this big scary obstacle. 

 

Generally it goes like this. You grab your GPU's drivers from Intel/Nvidia/AMD then your motherboards drivers right from the handy list on its support page. At that point, you're more or less done. You can check back on that support page periodically for the latest releases. That and Windows Update should keep you where you need to be.

 

Those who, again, don't really know what they're doing that DO use those third party tools usually end up in trouble when those things try to install a bunch of crap they don't need and they just agree to it as they don't know any better. 

 

Driver update software is like registry cleaners. Just say no.

[191x7]

1 hour ago, Cianoo said:

I am trying to find a free, reliable driver updater, but I am having some trouble. Any suggestions?

Driver Booster from iobit.

 

First one doesn't know about drivers. The one hears something, starts downloading manually or installing from CD-s/DVD-s.

Then comes the phase of looking for automatic updaters followed by a phase of hatred towards such programs because of the lack of knowledge when using such programs.

Then comes the phase of manual driver installs (most tech enthusiasts fall in this category) followed by the combination phase where you download the most important stuff manually and let the automatic software check to see if you skipped something or use such software for finding specific drivers for older or legacy machines.

This last part is where I'm at, and Driver Booster really is a powerful tool, as long as you know how to use it, what to use it for and what to do in case something goes bad.

Although, 10-ish years ago there were problems caused by such software often, nowadays they polished it so that problems are really rare.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Programs, Apps and Websites

 

In my opinion and actually paying for one (for heck of it), they are crap. You also don't need to pay to anyone for basic troubleshooting like updating the one or two drivers that might be causing issues. I for example troubleshoot that my used GPU doesn't have working DisplayPorts. Only annoyance was having to install GeForce Experience which can't be unchecked from latest versions of Nvidia drivers.

[demonix00]

You should be extremely careful with driver updates (that includes snappy driver installer origin) as they are more likely to cause more issues by installing newer versions of drivers that has no support for the device in question which would cause something to either not work properly or end up in a unrecoverable BSoD loop.

 

Always get drivers from the device manufacturer or the motherboard manufacturer and don't rely on either the generic windows drivers or windows abilities to not screw up and replace the latest drivers for older drivers.