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September 1st, 2006 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Computer noob needs help with drivers?

Okay friend, first and foremost this lesson needs to be learned . . . do not, I repeat do not, e.v.e.r. delete drivers for any of hardware on your computer . . . very very very bad.

Second important lesson . . . do not ever download drivers for a hardware device, particularly a main component, unless you are absolutely certain that you have the right drivers for your device.

Drivers for hardware are a not the same as program drivers, I understand that with programs it either works or it doesn’t, you just dump the program and start over . . . not so with hardware devices, you can end up putting your system into a non-recoverable crash by deleting drivers or other files when you don’t really know what you’re doing.

Now, first things first, you have already deleted your drivers and from the sounds of it you downloaded the wrong ones for your system. Delete whatever file(s) you downloaded and we’ll start fresh.

First (and easiest) thing to do is to use the Windows Update feature. Most people completely rely on this feature to keep their system update. That is not the job of Windows Update and that is not what it does.

All Windows Update will do in auto-update mode is ensure that you have the most critical updates to Windows on your system. It does not check your hardware or software for updates automatically, and in fact it won’t even do optional updates for your operating system, just the critical updates, that’s it that’s all, if you rely on automatic updates.

That’s not to say it can’t do more, and this is very important. If you run the Windows Update feature and have it do a “custom” update search rather than an “express” update search, you will end up discovering that there are likely tons of optional updates available for you to download, specifically for your system.

If you look to the left once it’s finished scanning your computer, you will see “optional software (number)” and “optional “hardware (number)” Those are items that you should download and install on your system, particularly the hardware ones, because they are usually driver updates for things like your CPU, your graphics card, your motherboard, etc.

Go ahead and install those all, make sure you repeat the scan after you think you’re finished, because installing some items may trigger new additional updates to appear.

Once you’ve finished you *should* end up having your deleted drivers back, since the update would have detected that they were missing, in a perfect world.

If the drivers were not detected then you need to go find them, but you need to make sure they are the right ones.

Write down the exact name of your graphics card, for example an NVidia GeForce 7600 GT, and then go to the NVidia website (or whoever your manufacturer is) and specifically search for updates to the “GeForce 7600 Series” graphic cards.

Unless the site indicates otherwise, you can assume that any available downloads under the 7600 GT series apply to you because you have a card in that category, download the files and install them.

Because you deleted the original drivers completely you may very well get an error message when you try to install. If you are sure that you have the correct drivers for your card, then you can go back to the manufacturer’s website and see if there is somewhere that you can download original replacements, if not then you can email them, explain the problem and ask them if they can send you the driver files.

This is all of course assuming that you do not have the installation cd specifically for your graphics card? You would only have that if you either have a custom built system or else you have added a stand-alone graphics card to an existing system. If your system is a store purchase then you wouldn’t have the graphics card cd.

Once you have your graphics card back in working order and the drivers are all up to date, you may still end up experiencing the same issue that caused you to slide down this slippery slope to begin with, if that’s the case then it means that your graphics card isn’t high enough to support the features of the game completely and you may want to look at upgrading your system .

Hope all this helps.

Dido – White Flag (Acoustic Cover)