How to Update Video Card Drivers on Vista
Microsoft's Windows Vista has been criticized for many reasons, ranging from its being rather resource-heavy to having driver difficulties. One of the most common driver compatibility issues that Vista users have is getting the drivers for their graphics cards to work properly. Blame for these problems, depending on how you approach the issue, can be put upon Vista or the driver manufacturer. For most users, however, it really does not matter who is to blame; all we care about is that our hardware worked on XP and will not work on our "upgraded" system. Luckily, there are steps that can be taken to update a graphics card to work properly.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Update the current driver. This can be done in the control panel under the hardware manager menu by clicking "check for update" or "update driver". Hopefully, Windows will find the appropriate driver online and install it. If this is the case, then you will have to restart your system to activate the new driver.
-
2
Verify that your driver is working. You will know immediately if the driver is working upon the restart; there may be an icon in your system tray and your screen resolution will probably change. If you are not sure, then run a Windows experience index, which will rate both you system's overall performance and that of your graphics cards. If Windows failed to find a driver or installed the wrong one, then move on to Step 3. Otherwise, you are done.
-
-
3
Look up your graphics card on the manufacturer's website. Most, if not all graphics card manufacturers provide the drivers to their products on their websites; Nvidia and ATI, the two largest and most popular graphics card manufacturers, make it very easy to find, download, and install the appropriate driver.
-
4
Follow the on-screen instructions on the page appropriate to your driver to install it. Usually, this process is automated past this point, so there will be little that you have to do to install and configure your new driver.
-
5
Restart your computer and verify, as described in Step 2, that you have installed the correct driver and it is working properly. Assuming everything has gone well, you will not need to take any further action and can begin enjoying your graphics card on Windows Vista.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Be sure to check for driver updates regularly, as doing so can increase the stability and performance of your hardware.
References
- Photo Credit Technology - Graphics Card image by Rob Hill from Fotolia.com
