older motherboards drivers

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bennieboy2290

Weaksauce
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After building a new PC, we know to go to the motherboard manufacturer's website to get the latest drivers for chipset, network interface, onboard audio, etc. But after awhile the motherboard manufacturer will stop updating their website with new drivers. Can I update the component drivers myself from the individual part manufacturer, or is the driver customized for my particular motherboard?

For example, my network interface is a Realtek 8111F gigabit LAN controller, my motherboard website's latest driver is from 2015, but if I go to Realtek's website and look for the latest driver for the 8111F, its continuing to be updated. Is it ok to keep these updated with the latest? Or does my motherboard use a custom driver for the 8111F that is specific to my motherboard?
 
For sure! I guess I'm more wondering if its a trial and error thing or if its standard practice that its always acceptable that separate drivers are fine to update and aren't tied to the specific motherboard.
 
The motherboard sites often stop updating after a very short time. I have often used W10 drivers page for W7 because it was more recent.
 
If you're running Windows 10, it will handle these updates automatically (when you update the OS, it will also update most of the drivers)

The only exception I've seen is discrete graphics.

But they will update onboard. My Intel HD graphics driver is from 2018, even though Sandy bridge waas not officially supported on Win 10. I installed win10 on all these systems in 2015.
 
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There was this program someone recommended to me and it would find all the drivers for your hardware by going to to the manufacturers site of the component.
It would update and install the drivers automatically.
I can't recall what the program was called though. I'll see if I can find the name of the program.

I think it was this one,
https://www.lifewire.com/snappy-driver-installer-review-2619199
 
dont use "driver programs" most are loaded with crap toolbars and adware garbage. manually go to the chip makers site and get the up to date drivers.
 
pendragon1 said:
dont use "driver programs" most are loaded with crap toolbars and adware garbage. manually go to the chip makers site and get the up to date drivers.
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Or just use Windows 10. It does this for free every time you do an OS update.
 
pendragon1 said:
that works ok for some things but its still behind on most. probably newer than the board makers though...
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Do you really need the latest sound drivers? if your system is stable, maybe it's best to update as little as possible?

That is the approach Windows 10 takes: only update with major releases (and then only WHQL updates). And still people give Win10 a hard time for DOING TOO MUCH!
 
whateverer said:
Do you really need the latest sound drivers? if your system is stable, maybe it's best to update as little as possible?

That is the approach Windows 10 takes: only update with major releases (and then only WHQL updates). And still people give Win10 a hard time for DOING TOO MUCH!
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yes and ok then... never said a word about that.
 
honestly with older hardware just go with what ever windows installs. it's usually never worth the hassle of trying to find legacy supported drivers. windows it's self will have the latest certified drivers available that support the hardware then check your system hardware list for anything it failed to recognize and manually install the drivers for that stuff.
 
bennieboy2290 said:
After building a new PC, we know to go to the motherboard manufacturer's website to get the latest drivers for chipset, network interface, onboard audio, etc. But after awhile the motherboard manufacturer will stop updating their website with new drivers. Can I update the component drivers myself from the individual part manufacturer, or is the driver customized for my particular motherboard?

For example, my network interface is a Realtek 8111F gigabit LAN controller, my motherboard website's latest driver is from 2015, but if I go to Realtek's website and look for the latest driver for the 8111F, its continuing to be updated. Is it ok to keep these updated with the latest? Or does my motherboard use a custom driver for the 8111F that is specific to my motherboard?
Click to expand...
There is no one size fits all answer to this.

Yes, you can download the driver from the hardware vendor directly in many cases, especially with custom built computers. For SI's like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. it may be more hit or miss since they sometimes require customized drivers depending on what the hardware is.

But one thing to consider is that many times newer drivers won't offer improvements to your older hardware. If everything is functioning correctly you could make the argument to stop updating drivers after a certain point since any new release would not provide a benefit to the older hardware. As others have pointed out as well, Microsoft typically includes compatible drivers for most hardware or at least can offer it as as a download through Windows Update.

The other thing to consider that would encourage you to update is that newer versions of Windows may not work well or install older drivers. I had an older Realtek audio driver that would just cause an install/uninstall loop a few years ago due to incompatibility with the newer version of 10. I upgraded to the latest driver to fix the install issue, not to fix/improve the existing hardware which did not have any changes mentioned in the patch notes.
 
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