Intel's Download Center

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IronChef75

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 13, 2008
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Has anyone noticed the Intel Download Center update from a few months ago? They seem to have reorganized things so now there's no obvious way of just getting access to the drivers needed for specific chipsets. In fact, they've removed the whole Chipset category. Now if you want something like the latest RST drivers, you either have to know what you're after and use search, or find an Intel made motherboard with the same chipset and look at the downloads for that.

You can still get everything you're after in a round about way, but why do something so stupid? I guess they want everyone to download from the motherboard OEM, which usually only offer out of date and quite often buggy versions. Oh well.
 
Yes we do want you getting the drivers for a board form the OEM or motherboard manufacturers. The baseline drivers for a chipset may not always be the best answer for your board. The reason why is that many of them will take our drivers and change them to fit what they want out of their boards. For this reason the drivers for the chipset has been removed from our site.

At the bottom of the download page is a link to provide feedback. You are more than welcome to provide feedback that you would like them to bring back the baseline drivers.
 
Wow... That has to be the dumbest move Intel could possibly make.

Drivers directly from the motherboard manufacturer are hit or miss at best. One of my motherboard manufacturers offers RST version 11.2 from like a year and a half ago as their newest download. The other manufacturer offers 11.5, but that is the version with the memory leak. 11.6 is the current version, and also the least problematic, and the only way i've known to get it is directly through Intel.

I was also sad the other day when I went down download Z77 chipset drivers and came up empty. Newest drivers offered by the OEM are ancient, as expected.

IntelEnthusiast said:
The reason why is that many of them will take our drivers and change them to fit what they want out of their boards. For this reason the drivers for the chipset has been removed from our site.
Click to expand...

Do motherboard manufacturers really do this with any degree of frequency? I don't personally recall ever downloading anything but generic, albeit outdated drivers from OEM websites. Even if they do offer some minor degree of customization, they fail when it comes to actually supplying updated drivers. Wouldn't it be better to simply give customers better access to the latest drivers? If we must get them through the OEM, maybe Intel can at least put some pressure on them to keep drivers reasonably up to date... Offering up RST 11.2 when the newest is 11.6 is bullshit.

Can you imagine if AMD or Nvidia made you get your videocard drivers through the OEM? Pass.
 
Technically it's 9.3.0.1025 but Intel doesn't publish it on their website for obvious reasons.
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Yes, that which I mention is the latest available on their site. And often a new driver is ready elsewhere but not on Intel's site, yet.
 
IntelEnthusiast said:
Yes we do want you getting the drivers for a board form the OEM or motherboard manufacturers. The baseline drivers for a chipset may not always be the best answer for your board. The reason why is that many of them will take our drivers and change them to fit what they want out of their boards. For this reason the drivers for the chipset has been removed from our site.

At the bottom of the download page is a link to provide feedback. You are more than welcome to provide feedback that you would like them to bring back the baseline drivers.
Click to expand...


Boo Intel. This is really stupid. When the Motherboard vendor gets the next series of Motherboard out, they basically drop update support for the last generation (which is less than a year now). So Intel is saying after less than a year, you cannot get updates for your Motherboard. Stupid!
 
Any idea if Intel is going to release Windows 8 chipset drivers on their site? Gigabyte last updated my chipset drivers (p55) in 2010. I have been searching for updated drivers for Win 8 and cannot find anything that works or installs correctly.
 
IntelEnthusiast said:
Yes we do want you getting the drivers for a board form the OEM or motherboard manufacturers. The baseline drivers for a chipset may not always be the best answer for your board.
Click to expand...

Motherboard vendors are BAD at writing code and should NOT be allowed to fiddle with drivers.
 
Acer doesn't even offer ANY downloads for my laptop anymore except the user guide.
 
Medion said:
Acer doesn't even offer ANY downloads for my laptop anymore except the user guide.
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that is what I am saying

what about OEMs that go out of business (ABIT?) or have their own planned obsolescence fail?

If Intel persists there is probably a class action in this.
 
Yeah, I thought this was a ridiculous decision. I just noticed recently that Gigabyte appears to keep their motherboard drivers reasonably up to date, but ever other manufacturer I've worked with rarely, if ever, update their drivers. And half the time, it feels like they're downloading off a dial up connection.

If Intel doesn't want to take responsibility over driver compatibility with vendor specific changes, how about making an enthusiast specific page with an "at your own risk" disclaimer. Something similar to game.amd.com but with a splash page directing users to try their motherboard support pages first?
 
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