- Messages
- 65
- Location
- Warsaw, Poland
Well, we often hear/read that we should update our drivers regularly, as the newest versions provide more security/stability/functionality/other enhancements. On the other hand OEM manufacturers want their customers to rely only on drivers available on their own support pages, not on components manufacturers (e.g. Intel) support pages.
Due to my professional and personal interest I often deal with Dell, HP and Lenovo laptops, but I guess it's a common problem for all OEMs. What I see on their support pages in a complete mess in many aspects. Let me tell only a couple of examples:
So, shall we disregard OEM wish to use only drivers provided by them and download them from components manufacturers pages anyway? This would allows us to stay current. But is it really necessary? Or is it better to fulfill their wish stick to the old well-tested drivers as long as our system operates correctly? What do you think?
Due to my professional and personal interest I often deal with Dell, HP and Lenovo laptops, but I guess it's a common problem for all OEMs. What I see on their support pages in a complete mess in many aspects. Let me tell only a couple of examples:
- "downgrading" the latest drivers - if you downloaded e.g. version 1.45 yesterday, today you may find version 1.42 marked as latest with no explanation at all,
- offering different version of the same driver on different localized support sites (while the driver is in English anyway),
- an update client (e.g. Dell's Client Update Utility, HP's SoftPaq) offering you to download older driver than you have already installed OR driver which is not even listed on the support webpage,
- ancient drivers versions presented as "latest" (especially Lenovo is the leader here) - while virtually all manufacturers provides significantly updated driver versions, OEM manufacturers make you stick to the version released months ago (I understand it takes time to test new releases, but come on...),
- Windows Update overwriting OEM manufacturers drivers with its own drivers recorded in its database,
- ... and many more.
So, shall we disregard OEM wish to use only drivers provided by them and download them from components manufacturers pages anyway? This would allows us to stay current. But is it really necessary? Or is it better to fulfill their wish stick to the old well-tested drivers as long as our system operates correctly? What do you think?
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8.1 Pro x64
- Computer type
- Laptop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Dell Precision M4800
- CPU
- Intel i7-4900MQ
- Memory
- 32 GB
- Graphics Card(s)
- Intel HD Graphics 4600 & nVidia Quadro K2100M
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Dell U2312HM & Dell 2408WFP
- Screen Resolution
- 1920x1080 & 1920x1200
- Hard Drives
- Samsung 840 EVO 256 GB & Hitachi TravelStar 5K750 750 GB
- Browser
- Firefox 32
- Antivirus
- Kaspersky Internet Security 15