What are Hardware Drivers and why do they occasionally go wrong?
byMark Townsend
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26 Feb, 2020
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Windows Update may have updated your drivers
Hardware Drivers can be a bit of a mystery to some Computer users but for advanced users they are part of every day life. Gamer's in particular are always hunting for the latest Graphics Drivers to improve their gaming experience. New Drivers for their Graphics Card can improve the Frames Per Second rate and therefore enhance their gaming experience, but the release of a new driver with bugs in can also bring about a series of problems that drives them mad. My standard advice is to wait for at least a couple of weeks before updating drivers to allow other people to iron out the faults or apply the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' rule and don't update your drivers if they are working fine.
As always today's blog is primarily about understanding what Hardware Drivers are and how and why they can go wrong rather than blowing everybody's mind with technical details on frames per second!! Most people are aware that a Computer comprises of Hardware and Software. The Components that make up your Computer are the Hardware so you are talking about Keyboard, Mouse and Printer externally and then RAM, Graphics Card, Sound Card etc internally. The Software is Windows 10 the Operating System and Programs like Microsoft Office. The Software and Hardware need to talk to each other and they do this through a Driver. You therefore have a Keyboard Driver, Mouse Driver, Printer Driver and a corresponding Driver for each piece of Hardware. If you think of the printing process for a Microsoft Word Document you may want to tell the printer you want A4, double sided printing, colour and specific margins. This information is supplied to the Printer by the Driver. With no Driver or an incompatible Driver you either end up with no print at all or your instructions are ignored and print goes off the edge of the page etc. Hopefully this helps clarify the role of the Driver.
In the event your Computer suddenly crashes you may see a Blue Screen often called the Blue Screen of Death or BSOD and this screen contains details of the cause of the crash and it is often related to an incompatible driver. Given that everything was okay the day before why does it suddenly go wrong? The simple answer to this is that it could be you installing a new component or updating a Driver but Microsoft are also renowned for rolling out new Drivers through the Windows update process and these can cause your machine to suddenly to go wrong.
Customers that don't understand Driver Updating often get tricked into installing Driver Update utilities. Please take my advice and never install one of these utilities as if you do one of three things will happen. The best outcome is that you get a load of unnecessary updates but everything works fine. The second possibility is that you get a batch of wrong Drivers installed and things start to go wrong or your Computer crashes and the third option that I see in many cases is that the Driver Update utility is little more than Malware and your information is being harvested along with numerous pop-ups and other issues on your machine just slowing it down.
Just remember that you don't need to update Drivers unless an important update is forcibly rolled out to you by Microsoft. The updates that Microsoft roll out are on occasions to solve a security issue but mostly because they believe they have found a better Driver for you. Unfortunately in some circumstances it isn't a better Driver and things start to go wrong. Losing your wi-fi connection or wi-fi repeatedly disconnecting and re-connecting is a typical problem. In this instance the best solution is to go back to the Driver you were using before that worked perfectly. The only problem here is that Microsoft spot this and usually just roll out the update again. The best solution is often to head to the website of the PC Manufacturer or Component Manufacturer (Wireless Card for instance) and download the Driver from there. If this is a more up to date driver it will not only resolve the problem but stop Microsoft from trying to update the Driver as well.
If you have any questions on the above or Churchdown Computers can help with any of your other Computer requirements then call Mark on 07557 483438, e-mail mark@churchdowncomputers.co.uk or fill out the form at the bottom of theContact page.
