Motherboard drivers question (ASRock Z77 Pro3 chipset drivers)

elramster

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Apr 25, 2012
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Hey guys, i just went out and bought all the parts necessary for a new computer that i will build in a few days. in the meantime, however, i need to install the drivers for my motherboard, gpu, wireless card and the like so that after i install windows 7 on my new machine, i can put in the USB stick that i copied the drivers to and install them. SO when i go to install the drivers for my motherboard (ASRock Z77 Pro3) i go to ASRock's website, pick out my model and all that, and i am met by a barrage of downloads. Please look here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/82854253/Untitled.png

1. Which drivers do i need? (Newegg's "How to build a computer -part 3" video tells me that i need the chipset, NIC/LAN, USB, and audio drivers.) downloaded all of the drivers on the page, along with all of the utilities underneath, just to be safe. Is that OK?

2. I CANT FIND THE CHIPSET DRIVERS!!!!!!! (i was able to locate the other three) I downloaded all of the drivers on the page, along with all of the utilities underneath, just to be safe. Is that good? Will they contain the chipset driver in there somewhere?

3. Should I just install from the driver CD? I'm pretty sure that the chipset drivers are very important, and even though NewEgg tells me that downloading drivers from the internet is better, I don't want to gamble with missing something important.

4. I want to use Intel's smart response technology to do SSD caching, so will the "rapid storage technology" drivers included with the motherboard be sufficient?

5. (side note) I can't download the drivers for my ASUS PCE-N15 wireless card on their website (it doesnt do anything when I select my OS to start downloading) so it will be OK if i install the driver from the disk, right?

So that covers the main drivers I need for my system: MoBo, Wireless card, and windows SRT (the gpu drivers were easy to find.) Do i need any other drivers to get my system running at its prime after i install windows?

Thank you guys so much for your support to help out a PC noob. :)
 
1. Windows 7 will have a lot of default MS drivers for a lot of your hardware. After installation, look at your device manager in Windows and see which items have a yellow exclamation mark. These will be the devices you truly need to install separate drivers for. After all hardware has drivers installed, then you can go about updating drivers to their latest versions if you wish.

2. The Intel INF driver on the ASRock page will be for the chipset drivers.

3. Downloading drivers will get you the latest version which usually has some bug fixes or performance tweaks. As I said before, worry about the hardware that did not have any Windows 7 default MS drivers first.

4. Yes. Be sure to have your SATA port set to RAID before installing Windows. RAID is required for SSD caching.

5. Yes. You can also research the wireless chipset that comes on that card and go to the chipmaker's website for drivers. (Hint: it has a Realtek RTL8192CE chipset).

Don't forget to get video drivers. The default Windows video drivers may work, but you'll definitely take a performance hit.

 

elramster

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Apr 25, 2012
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Thank you, the motherboard drivers I decided to download are the INF (chipset), LAN, USB, Audio, and RST. I will be installing the wireless card driver via CD and the GPU driver I already have. DO I need anything else? Is there any other utility on that page that is not exactly necessary but would help me out? Thanks!
 
Here's an awesome site that gives you a single file that will install most of the popular must-have apps. It automatically un-selects the bloat such as browser toolbars and such too. You can also keep the file to quickly update all bundled apps later on.

http://ninite.com/