Prepping PC for reformat


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I'm going to reformat my PC later (after a good clean and thermal paste re-application).  I've negelcted what is astill a fairly good computer for a few years and was wondering about Firmware updates as well as drivers and so on.

 

Can anyone recommend any tools that do that "Get all your firmware and drivers for your system" apps that are actually any good?

 

Thanks

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hmmmm, Bios, and firmware is still recommended to get direct from the manufacturer... depending on spec's of your system, 99% of the time, general msft drivers from windows update should suffice!

The other obvious ones of course, are GPU drivers.. get them from the manufacturers website... :) 

As for software that can do all that for you, i think it was called Driver Genius, i tried it out many moons ago, and sort of did the trick, but again, that was pre-win10 days!

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Yeah I second getting them direct from the manufacturer of the motherboard, if you have a Gigabyte board, don't use the APP Center, it is crap! Just grab the individual files from the support page. If the PC is Intel based, you can also use Intel Driver & Support Assistant for chipset drivers etc.

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Thanks, that was my thinking - was just being lazy.  Am harvesting them all from manufacturer sites as wek speak.

 

Do Processors have firmware updates?

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Just now, Dick Montage said:

Do Processors have firmware updates?

Yes, there were microcode updates for Intel processors a year or so ago, but they are usually embedded in BIOS update as far as I remember.

 

SNAG-0010.png

 

Here was mine.

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4 minutes ago, Steven P. said:

Yes, there were microcode updates for Intel processors a year or so ago, but they are usually embedded in BIOS update as far as I remember.

 

SNAG-0010.png

 

Here was mine.

Thanks.  Can't see anything on the Intel site for my Core i7 4790k

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Microcode revisions for the processor could come integrated in the motherboard firmware itself, if there are any updates for it on the manufacturer site you may already get a newer one that way, but they're also available via Windows Update if I'm not mistaken so I'd say that's something you don't need to take care of.

 

Driver updates are tricky though, some manufacturers used to link version numbers to OS releases, for example 10.x.x.x would be something built for Windows 10 while 7.x.x.x or 6.1.x.x could be for 7 and it confused some apps that automate the process of updating drivers, they'd show updates that weren't actually meant for the system if only release dates were taken into account.

 

The easiest thing could be leaving it all for Windows Update to handle actually, as long as you have a network connection up, Windows will install drivers for most if not all of the devices you have. Going to the manufacturer sites for the "important" ones could be useful (storage controller, graphics, network) if you want to get the latest, except for integrated Realtek audio for which there's no public upstream and you have to rely on the motherboard vendor or 3rd parties.

 

Apps that handle updates, consistently and without fault, are rare to see in my experience. For example, DriverPack Solution has a big repository of drivers, but I remember the thing to be intrusive as hell with no sensible defaults. Snappy Driver or Snappy Driver Origin (different interface, same database I think) also have a large repository of drivers, I've found that preferable to DriverPack Solution. As for commercial programs (or freemium), last I checked I found Driver Easy to be fine (I don't recall any false positives), but the free version has download speeds capped, so it may be a tedious to use.

 

In any case it's been a while since I last used any of the programs I mentioned, so things could have changed for better or worse. Manually, Station Drivers hosts an important collection too and in Win-Raid you can find the latest versions per branch of Intel storage controllers.

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What OS will you be installing? I've found newer versions of Windows get you the necessary drivers and then visiting the manufacturer for specifics is the best (ie GPU, Chipset, soundcard if its not onboard).

 

9 hours ago, Dick Montage said:

Thanks.  Can't see anything on the Intel site for my Core i7 4790k

You'd find this on your motherboards website as a bios update.

 

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Hello,

 

If you purchased the computer from a manufacturer like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and so forth, then they may have a utility on their website or in the Microsoft Store that you can download, and it will scan your system for outdated BIOS (UEFI) firmware and drivers and apply it.  For a build-your-own system, your best bet is to visit each hardware part manufacturer's support website, and check for downloadable updates at each one.

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

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