What Drivers Do I update (Win 10; Very Confused!) Home PC System

Hi Tony317

Updating drivers is one of those topics where everyone likely lines up either on the right or the left. Some believe you should always be using the latest and some say use the ones that work. Look at the date on some drivers, they are ancient but they work just fine.

I'm in the second camp. If your drivers are working I leave them alone. Sure someday, maybe, they will cause a BSOD. If and when this happens you update.

Unless your machine is BSOD'ing or experiencing performance issues don't fix what ain't broke.

While we don't see it as often some vendors tweak drivers to their specific hardware. This can cause real issues when you go to use the actual vendors drivers later in life as the tweak is missing. PC vendors do not keep machines drivers up to date very long after their next new model comes out.

Windows has also taken on the activity of keeping drivers updated on your computer and people line up on both sides of this strategy. They get them from the people who build the adapters, say Realtek.

I use the drivers at the computers manufactures site as a base, in your case Lenovo. This all being said when Windows installs Feature updates it refreshes your drivers with the most recent it has on file. (At least this has been my experience.) This can and has caused issues. You quickly figure out which drivers you can't take. I have an old Intel AC7260 wireless card. Using the the newest driver I can't connect. I always have to fall back to Feb 2014.

I would say the majority don't have driver issues after Feature updates. Of course no data is published..

To see if there is a new driver in the Windows catalog you can right click on a device in device manager and then click Update driver. I would ensure you have a system image available, you need to be able to recover, and I would not do more than a couple at a time. Prove stability for a day or two, re image and move on. There is also an option to roll back a driver in device manager, the system image is for when it really goes south.

With the pending release of 1809 and assuming you get the update soon after your drivers will be refreshed. They were refreshed with 1803 and 1709.

I'm with Lenovo, your current drivers are fine.

So this is from one side of driver updates debate. let's see what others have to say.

Caledon Ken said:

Hi Tony317

Updating drivers is one of those topics where everyone likely lines up either on the right or the left. Some believe you should always be using the latest and some say use the ones that work. Look at the date on some drivers, they are ancient but they work just fine.

I'm in the second camp. If your drivers are working I leave them alone. Sure someday, maybe, they will cause a BSOD. If and when this happens you update.

Unless your machine is BSOD'ing or experiencing performance issues don't fix what ain't broke.

While we don't see it as often some vendors tweak drivers to their specific hardware. This can cause real issues when you go to use the actual vendors drivers later in life as the tweak is missing. PC vendors do not keep machines drivers up to date very long after their next new model comes out.

Windows has also taken on the activity of keeping drivers updated on your computer and people line up on both sides of this strategy. They get them from the people who build the adapters, say Realtek.

I use the drivers at the computers manufactures site as a base, in your case Lenovo. This all being said when Windows installs Feature updates it refreshes your drivers with the most recent it has on file. (At least this has been my experience.) This can and has caused issues. You quickly figure out which drivers you can't take. I have an old Intel AC7260 wireless card. Using the the newest driver I can't connect. I always have to fall back to Feb 2014.

I would say the majority don't have driver issues after Feature updates. Of course no data is published..

To see if there is a new driver in the Windows catalog you can right click on a device in device manager and then click Update driver. I would ensure you have a system image available, you need to be able to recover, and I would not do more than a couple at a time. Prove stability for a day or two, re image and move on. There is also an option to roll back a driver in device manager, the system image is for when it really goes south.

With the pending release of 1809 and assuming you get the update soon after your drivers will be refreshed. They were refreshed with 1803 and 1709.

I'm with Lenovo, your current drivers are fine.

So this is from one side of driver updates debate. let's see what others have to say.

I am having problems (pretty serious): Latency, Lag, Disconnect, FPS, "feels slow" (the system) and more. Problems have existed for about 2 yrs. Slowly been buying new parts. I have almost all new parts a home user installs on their own. Problems happen when I play this one game only. It is the largest of its kind in the world. Millions play it 24 hours a day. This indicates I am most likely the problem.

Over the last 2 yrs I've received 60 hours of tech support (more). The problem is.... It is a new person and I get caught in a loop of the same bandaid fixes over and over... Coping and pasting the same data for their review again and again. I know they mentioned drivers. So, I figured it could not hurt to manually and personally verify to the best of my ability my drivers are not the cause. I really have no clue if they are the only problem or no part of it at all. I am just "doing one thing at a time".

I did what you said...I checked device manager and made it look for updates. It found none. Because I checked Lenovo and WINUPDATES as well does this mean their are no updates? Search just ends there?


SATA ACHI Controller
SMBus Controller Device

those are 2 of the 7 things 6 or 7 of the automatic driver updating tools all recognize as out of date.. My problem is I do not know what they are. I do not mind taking 4 months to learn. I just do not know who the manufacturer is. It is not listed in my device manager. I am not against calling each corporation (manf) individually and paying them to help me investigate. I'd happily pay Realtek, but they are garbage and just wont reply to dozens of emails. Again this might not be a driver issue at all. I am just seeking information on ways a professional, smart or generally informed person could manually check and verify drivers.

THANKS :) :)

This was a lot to read. It is a bit nuts and more than frustrating. There is a problem, I am not randomly desiring to update things because I think is sounds like an ok idea. I am testing (and have been) testing everything I can. There is a glitch in the matrix and all I have is time - oddly desire to fix it too. It seems like you are indicating because I checked Lenovo/device manager and winupdates drivers are fine move on to next step?

The SATA ACHI Controller is your disk control. Its main purpose

and

SMBus Controller Device is the System Management controller is part of the chipset.



What is the model of you computer. Please be very specific as Lenovo generates lots of models.

I'm going to bet both are Intel. We will see.

So this game, is it played online? I ask ask you mentioned your wireless card.