Finding the latest drivers for your devices can be a challenge if you are doing it for the first time. The goal of this guide is to get you knowledgeable on how to find out what exactly your hardware is and then go about getting and installing new drivers for it. Let's get started.
1. Identifying your hardware
First off we will want to find out exactly what your hardware is. To do this go to your Start Menu and then click Control Panel. Click the icon labeled System. Click the Hardware tab and then click the button labeled Device Manager.
Here you should see something like this:
This screen shows you all of the devices you have installed on your computer, if you want more information on the device, double-click on it. The information you will need to find is the name of the device and the manufacturer. Make a note of this information and then continue on.
2. Finding drivers online
You can search for the manufacturer in a search engine and then browse to the drivers, or, if you can see your manufacturer present on the list below, you can go to the drivers section of their web site. Make sure you get the proper drivers for your device.
3Dfx
3DLabs
Abit USA
Acer
ASUS
ATI
Canon
Casio
Chaintech
Cisco
Creative
Compaq
Dell
D-Link
EVGA
Fujitsu
HP
IBM
Intel
Iomega
Kodak
Lenovo
Lexmark
Microsoft
MSI
Netgear
Sony
Toshiba
Xerox
3. Updating Drivers
Many of the drivers that you download today will come with a program that installs the drivers itself and updates everything for you. If that is available use that, if not continue with this guide.
After you have downloaded and extracted the drivers to your hard drive you will want to go to your Start Menu and then click Control Panel. Click the icon labeled System. Click the Hardware tab and then click the button labeled Device Manager. Go to the device you are updating and then double click it. Switch to the Driver tab and then click Update driver.
Follow the instructions and you will have your device updated. If your computer starts giving you problems after you have updated, click Roll Back Driver under the same tab as the Update driver button.
4. Conclusion
That's it, if you have any questions at all, please ask them in our friendly forums. If not have a good day and we hope to see you again if you have any questions about your computer.