Do I need all these drivers?

[gameboyz]

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1150 - GA-Z87-D3HP (rev. 1.0)

or should I only install those that I need? what would be a better option?

 

[ragnarok95]

If you dun need the audio/vga then u can skip. Else install the USB3.0, lan, chipset drivers.

Erm... need to ask one??

 

[gameboyz]

If you dun need the audio/vga then u can skip. Else install the USB3.0, lan, chipset drivers.

Erm... need to ask one??

i too long never get down and dirty with all these hardware stuff

so a bit lost now

so if i have a gfx but no sound card, i should install the rest? including the SATA RAID/AHCI? i'm not RAIDing... but i have no idea what the AHCI does

 

[Ferolare]

personally

skip realtek audio if you're not going to use the more.."advanced" features

skip intel mei too..unless you want to identify "PCI Simple Communications Controller" on device manager (windows update has that as an optional update, at least for my z77 board)

INF/LAN/USB3...required

SATA..just grab the preinstall version and update via device manager

VGA..you are using a discrete video card right?

think i've covered all the bases

 

[gameboyz]

personally

skip realtek audio if you're not going to use the more.."advanced" features

skip intel mei too..unless you want to identify "PCI Simple Communications Controller" on device manager (windows update has that as an optional update, at least for my z77 board)

INF/LAN/USB3...required

SATA..just grab the preinstall version and update via device manager

VGA..you are using a discrete video card right?

think i've covered all the bases

i was planning on installing:

realtek hd audio
intel MEI
intel INF installation
intel LAN
intel SATA preinstall
intel rapid storage technology
hot fix
usb 3.0 hot fix

basically everything apart from vga... because these are official "motherboard drivers"...

it won't hurt right?

but you're saying that some aren't needed? (apart from vga drivers)

 

[Encrypted11]

For RST you can install the .zip version instead. No clutter, let it run in the background. The control panel (with exe version) slows down startup and isn't useful.

Unzip the latest RST (not exe), use device manager, point to the SATA RAID controller, right click, update, browse computer.

 

[gameboyz]

thanks for the heads up

qn: if i'm using both a SSD and HDD (for storage), do i need to install all these SATA drivers?

and also, even if these drivers come bundled w windows, no harm installing the latest versions from gigabyte website, right?

 

[ghillie]

i installed all...no issues leh hahaha

 

[gameboyz]

i installed all...no issues leh hahaha

every single driver on the giga website? haha

 

[dannytan87]

i too long never get down and dirty with all these hardware stuff

so a bit lost now

so if i have a gfx but no sound card, i should install the rest? including the SATA RAID/AHCI? i'm not RAIDing... but i have no idea what the AHCI does

AHCI is the lastest 1. need its for trim, ssd garbage collection thingy.

buy liao ah very excited anot. i also looking forward to october. need AMD card with unified memory architecture and battlefield 4. heard battlefield 4 is launching together with AMD HD 9000

so you buy this?

 

[Encrypted11]

thanks for the heads up

qn: if i'm using both a SSD and HDD (for storage), do i need to install all these SATA drivers?

and also, even if these drivers come bundled w windows, no harm installing the latest versions from gigabyte website, right?

Might improve performance if your SATA controller is on RAID mode. Current RST can support TRIM for SSDs in raid which improves performance consistency.

AHCI on the other hand is a subset of RAID which usually works best for SSDs.

 

[gameboyz]

AHCI is the lastest 1. need its for trim, ssd garbage collection thingy.

buy liao ah very excited anot. i also looking forward to october. need AMD card with unified memory architecture and battlefield 4. heard battlefield 4 is launching together with AMD HD 9000

so you buy this?

Hope my 760 OC can support 1080p bf4 for now I'll settle w bf3. Just bought it for $9.90 on origin. It's downloading as I head to SLS.

 

[gameboyz]

Might improve performance if your SATA controller is on RAID mode. Current RST can support TRIM for SSDs in raid which improves performance consistency.

AHCI on the other hand is a subset of RAID which usually works best for SSDs.

I see… guess I'll just install everything then

 

[Encrypted11]

I see… guess I'll just install everything then

You can put your SSD into AHCI mode in BIOS I believe by tweaking the SATA controller settings.

 

[Encrypted11]

For Intel LAN, I don't know if there's zip file version for the driver if you update.

At least for Intel WLAN cards, the exe version of the drivers installs a lot of Intel control panel junk that can disable the zero configuration utility in Windows (basically the default way you connect to Wi-Fi, manage your network connections etc). Have to turn it off to remove those clutter too, a lot of things are not useful, slower and more complex.

Hm... Basically most Intel drivers install a lot of bloat along with them. If there's a .zip version (sometimes they call it "for IT Administrators"), use them and install via device manager. Those are generally pure drivers only without bloat.

I'm primarily a laptop user so some things I talked about I used agaration.