Driver advice

Looking for some opinions about the best drivers to use.
Just did a fresh Win 10 install, and am wondering if I should just stick with the drivers from Acer (which I'm using atm) or go for the latest generic available from Nvidia/Intel/etc.
How's about using a program like Driver Booster for the upgrades?
Cheers

 

Myself I never use these programs. You are just looking for trouble. I always go to the manufacturer , Acer in your case if they have W10 drivers. If not then go to Nvidia/Intel to get the latest updated driver.

 

This, going for newer drivers often breaks stuff I found out. Like the latest Killer WLAN driver keeps disconnecting me from the Wireless network but the Clevo driver which is one version behind is rock stable.

Never update drivers other than the VGA Drivers unless you know for a fact that the newer driver resolves an issue that you are facing.

 

Thanks guys. I've always wondered how "optimized" the Manf. drivers are. Thankfully the Acer drivers are reasonably up to date - moreso than MS anyways
Back on my old MSi, I had no choice but to go it alone since they didn't want to offer up 64 bit drivers for my machine (came with 32bit Vista)

 

FYI MS has no reason to keep manufacture drivers that is up to the manufacture to update their drivers. So don't blame MS because they don't make drivers that is for your laptop maker and hardware manufacture to do create and update their drivers. So we need to get this driver story corrected. Also as mentioned don't use 3rd party driver software or loader they are malware infested and will make your system worse and less secure. Anyone looking for drivers unless the hardware is MS verified must go to the laptop/desktop manufacture site to look for the latest drivers and if they aren't there then one must go to each hardware component manufacture site to find the latest matching driver.

 

Wasn't looking to blame MS for not having updated drivers, just pointing out fact.
I pretty much assumed that getting video/audio drivers directly from the source (nvidia/realtek) isn't going to be an issue in most cases (although I have never tried benchmarking the nvidia vs. manf. to see if there is any performance difference - but I doubt there is a noticeable one).
My biggest questions were regarding things like chipsets/network drivers. Those ones I'm pretty much clueless about
Good advice about 3rd party updaters, I'll stay away from those

 

Chipset, network, touchpad, etc.: if it ain't broken don't fix it. Especially as your hardware ages, those are likely to break things with newer versions that were designed for more recent hardware. Video drives is usually the area where you'll see the most improvements by keeping relatively up to date. Even then, new video drivers sometimes break older stuff, but are usually pretty stable.

 

And don't be the Guinea pig and test new drivers first. The same applies Win Crap updates. Let other people test new drivers/updates first

 

I concur about sticking with your current drivers, unless you encounter an issue.

You can look at the release notes for driver versions to see what they're supposed to fix. If a network card driver update adds/resolves power-saving features, etc., it might be worth trying. Just don't do it an hour before you need to use the computer for something important. Keep the installers for the drivers you use in a safe place in case you need them.

Charles

 

Even if there are promised gobs of performance enhancement be careful. Usually the premise of not fixing what is not broken is best!

 

This is true of old hardware that isn't supported for Windows 10 drivers. If one wants Windows 10 then purchase a Windows 10 system or a Win7, 8.1 that has manufacture Win10 driver support. Otherwise your looking down a dark tunnel of incompatibilities and problems.