Updating drivers (vendor laptops)

notabot

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Oct 31, 2018
703
Hi,

I was wondering how folks update drivers in their laptops. The vendor always has an app that provides driver and firmware updates. It's unclear if when delivered by the vendor app the drivers are WHQL.
At a later time these updates almost always reach Windows update as well. Leaving the WHQL question aside for a moment, the issue I had in the past was that almost aways when I installed drivers via the vendor app, Windows update had issues later ( when the drivers were included ). So I ended up not using the vendor update app at all and letting all driver updates come via Windows update, which is suboptimal as this way driver updates could happen months later.

How do people work around this driver conflict ?

Also I have secure boot enabled so there's the WHQL question as well
 

roger_m

Level 41
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Dec 4, 2014
3,015
It's unclear if when delivered by the vendor app the drivers are WHQL.
They almost certainly will be. You can check to see if you have any non WHQL drivers installed by running sigverif, which is included with Windows.
the issue I had in the past was that almost aways when I installed drivers via the vendor app, Windows update had issues later ( when the drivers were included ).
That's unusual. Having the vendor drivers installed, should not be causing issues with drivers that Windows Update installs.
So I ended up not using the vendor update app at all and letting all driver updates come via Windows update, which is suboptimal as this way driver updates could happen months later.
It's not suboptimal. Other than video drivers, there's usually little need to update drivers. Personally, I keep the drivers on all my computers updated, but it's not essential to do so. On the other hand, if you do a clean install of Windows, or upgrade to a new version, then driver update software can be very handy for finding the drivers for devices that Windows Update does not have drivers for and replacing generic drivers with correct OEM ones - which may work better.

I use Driver Booster, Driver Easy and DriverHub and some other driver update tools. I highly recommend Driver Booster as it does a better job at finding the right drivers than some of the alternatives and it has a fairly large database of driver updates. Driver Easy is very good too and has about same amount of drivers, but the free version is very limited, unlike Driver Booster. DriverHub, is quite good and will sometimes have drivers for devices which Driver Booster and Driver Easy don't have drivers for, but it's not as accurate at matching the correct drivers. Also, its installer comes bundled with other software, so you need to pay attention when installing and decline the offer to install Avast.

While there are many alternatives, most of them suffer from having a smaller database of driver updates, or not being very good at finding the right drivers. I see that Snappy Driver Installer has been recommended and if often is, but in my experience in using on a number of different computers, it does not work as well as the tools I recommended.

Pretty much all driver update tools, only install WHQL certified drivers.
 

Venustus

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Dec 30, 2012
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What's the advantage of this tool vs the vendor's update tool for a given laptop?
Sometimes SDI finds driver updates for certain other drivers that the vendor may not have..For example if you have a Toshiba laptop you need other updating tools for the drivers.

If you want to play it safe just use the vendors website as the safest bet....I use SDI because they usually have the latest drivers...As @roger_m said Driver booster is also not bad.
 

roger_m

Level 41
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Dec 4, 2014
3,015
I've never had an issue myself and it has a bigger database than driver booster.
I would say the database size is fairly similar, but perhaps Driver Boosters database is slightly bigger. I just ran both on one of my computers and they both found 21 driver updates. I was only using the free version of Driver Booster as I don't have a product key for the new v7. It's possible that the the Pro version would have found one or two extra drivers.
What's the advantage of this tool vs the vendor's update tool for a given laptop?
As @venustus said they can find drivers which the vendors update tool will miss. Also, typically PC manufacturers only provide driver updates for about 6 months or so after releasing a computer. There are some exceptions to this, such as some business PCs, but in general it holds true.

As well, I've found the vendor's update tools to often not work very well and may miss driver updates which are included on their website. So if the tool fails to find any driver updates, it is possibly that there are actually some on the vendor's website. I've even seen some of the vendor's update tools, never find even a single driver update.
 

notabot

Level 15
Thread author
Verified
Oct 31, 2018
703
Sometimes SDI finds driver updates for certain other drivers that the vendor may not have..For example if you have a Toshiba laptop you need other updating tools for the drivers.

If you want to play it safe just use the vendors website as the safest bet....I use SDI because they usually have the latest drivers...As @roger_m said Driver booster is also not bad.

Thanks, is there a way to do this without registry edits or Group Policy ? ie via a utility tool ?
 

Gandalf_The_Grey

Level 76
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Apr 24, 2016
6,506
After reading this thread: Update - Driver Easy
I decided to try Driver Easy Pro myself and was pleasantly surprised.
After updating a lot of drivers on my Acer laptop from 2015 it was actually quiet for the first time since I have it.
No more annoying fan noise.
I suspect it was the update for the Intel Watchdog Timer Driver, but I'm not completely sure.
That driver was never updated with Driver Booster or Snappy Driver Installer that I had tried before.
For the other laptops in my family (less older ones) I couldn't notice any direct difference with the updated drivers, but so far very happy with my Acer laptop again. So especially with older laptops that have no manufacturer support anymore I recommend Driver Easy Pro.
 

Burrito

Level 24
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May 16, 2018
1,363
After reading this thread: Update - Driver Easy
I decided to try Driver Easy Pro myself and was pleasantly surprised.
After updating a lot of drivers on my Acer laptop from 2015 it was actually quiet for the first time since I have it.
No more annoying fan noise.
I suspect it was the update for the Intel Watchdog Timer Driver, but I'm not completely sure.
That driver was never updated with Driver Booster or Snappy Driver Installer that I had tried before.
For the other laptops in my family (less older ones) I couldn't notice any direct difference with the updated drivers, but so far very happy with my Acer laptop again. So especially with older laptops that have no manufacturer support anymore I recommend Driver Easy Pro.

Yes.

I actually bought a second 3-pack of Driver Easy Pro licenses -- so now have DE on more than 6 computers in my household.

On most of them, there is a notable improvement in one way or another. With speed, with heat.. yeah, I have two computers where the fan basically went from being often on to being rarely on.

There is another guy here (@miyagi) who tried DE, and actually took the before and after temperature of a computer and has an exact heat advantage measure in degrees.

In the meantime, I still keep DriverBooster on the computers, But it's going to start coming off. It's kind of a scuzzy company. I sometimes notice slowdowns as it searches around my computer for other things trying to sell me different products. It's invasive.

As I've indicated in other threads --- use caution with driver update software. I would not let most driver update software touch my machines. I've had several bad experiences.

Another reference thread:
 

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