What Drivers do I NEED?

[Occy]

Every other motherboard I have owned was just a 1 click download for everything I needed. For ASRock, there is a list of stuff that I am not sure about. Can someone list the stuff I NEED? Leaving out all the fluffy extras.

ASRock > Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3 Windows 7 x64

[parsec]

Re: What Drivers do I NEED?

Really, what kinds of boards have you been using? I've never seen that, one click download for everything, and I'd never trust it. Multiple download driver and utility files is certainly not an ASRock thing, you must have used all very simple AMD boards in the past. AMD has their "All in One" driver package, but that never covers every piece of hardware on the board, and their RAID driver is separate. You've been using standard Windows drivers for many things, which is Ok, but is not the best in many cases.

Since you did not list your OS version, CPU, video source, disk drives, and any extra hardware like sound cards, etc, it's impossible to provide exact versions of what you "need".

[WalkToFreedom]

Re: What Drivers do I NEED?

Hi Parsec. This is an interesting topic for me as I was going to post a thread asking the same thing, you have already been active in my thread regarding the UEFI resolution BIOS. Given that my PC will have a specific use, I too only want to install the necessary drivers and avoid the extra utils etc.

My system is as follows:

Asrock H81M
i3-4130
Corsair (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600MHz CL9 Unbuffered Dual Channel DDR3.
ArcadeVGA 3000 PCIe.
Crucial 64gb M4 SSD
250gb SATA 7200rpm SATA2 (i think)

Note: I will not be using the onboard video.

Thanks,

Matt

[Volnaiskra]

Re: What Drivers do I NEED?

Asrock like to bundle a lot of bloatware with their boards. Most of the software isn't completely useless as such, but much of it caters to small niches, and almost all of it is poorly designed on the front end.

Here are my thoughts:

DRIVERS

Intel rapid start: install only if you use Sleep mode on your PC

Smart Connect driver: install only if you want your PC to connect to facebook etc. while asleep

Appcharger: install only if you will connect apple products (eg. ipod) to your PC

Lucid Virtu: If you don't know what this is, you almost definitely don't need it. It makes big promises about increasing framerates in games that only actually deliver in very specific circumstances - and even then it's contentious. I'm an avid gamer but I didn't find any use for this. However, it may enable you to plug in extra monitors to your PC, by allowing you to plug them into your motherboard ports, and not just the graphics card ports.

VGA drivers: you may as well install this, but you won't really need it if you're using a discrete graphics card. But if you do, it might add an annoying and irrelevant intel icon to your system tray. So actually, maybe give it a miss.

everything else: probably best to install



UTILITY:
3TB+ Unlocker utility: only needed if you will have hard drives larger than 3TB

F-Stream: Will you overclock? If not, leave this alone

Instant Boot: It's kind of like Windows Hibernate feature. Most people seem to say it's junk. It basically makes your startup shorter by making your shutdown longer. Effectively, it runs the startup up of your computer AFTER you shutdown, then puts it in hibernate. Then, when you switch on the computer, all it has to do is wake up, since it's already done a 'pre-startup' of sorts. Sounds good in theory, I guess. Though I don't bother with it.

XFastLAN: The idea is good (you tell it which internet programs are most important, and speeds up internet by prioritising those ones and deprioritising other ones....no more laggy youtube streaming because some silly app is hogging all the bandwidth in the background). In practice, I didn't find any difference when I used it. And it has an ugly interface that is impossible to hide into the system tray. You need to have to always open. Ridiculous.

XFastRAM: If you have loads of RAM (eg. 16GB) that you know you won't be using, then you may as well set this up to make it use some of that RAM for caching. Otherwise, don't bother.

Xfast USB: yeah, why not. Though it probably will introduce yet another icon into your system tray

[WalkToFreedom]

Re: What Drivers do I NEED?

Asrock like to bundle a lot of bloatware...

Hi Volnaiskra. Brilliant! Thanks for the feedback, they reason why this is important for me as the PC is inside an Arcade Cabinet so obviously I will have a very specific task. I.e running emulator software.

I can see the use of the Instant boot if it works well, as I like the idea of my Cab turning on almost immediately like a real one. Not worried about the longer shutdown as will usually shut it down after eyes start bleeding from staring at CRT for hours. Do you know if it works with win7?

Very helpful.

Thanks!

[Volnaiskra]

Re: What Drivers do I NEED?

Then installing the bare minimum is probably a very good thing for you. Instant Boot would probably be very welcome too, since arcade machines in the 80s didn't tend to have long, drawn out BIOS screens :D

I don't know for sure if it works with win7, but I'd be surprised if it didn't.

[parsec]

Re: What Drivers do I NEED?

Hi Parsec. This is an interesting topic for me as I was going to post a thread asking the same thing, you have already been active in my thread regarding the UEFI resolution BIOS. Given that my PC will have a specific use, I too only want to install the necessary drivers and avoid the extra utils etc.

My system is as follows:

Asrock H81M
i3-4130
Corsair (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600MHz CL9 Unbuffered Dual Channel DDR3.
ArcadeVGA 3000 PCIe.
Crucial 64gb M4 SSD
250gb SATA 7200rpm SATA2 (i think)

Note: I will not be using the onboard video.

Thanks,

Matt

What OS? What OS? What OS?

I suppose you can pick the correct version for your OS, so generally speaking you and the OP need:

1. INF driver ver:9.4.0.1017 (for Win 7 64 bit) Most important file installer to run first, before anything else. This "driver" (really it isn't) adds files that identifies all the hardware built into and used on your board (CPU, chips from the H81, to the network chip) so the following driver installers will install things correctly.

For the OP, you need INF driver ver:9.2.0.1021, or a newer version from Intel, etc, it will still work fine, the installers are for any Intel board, newer ones just include newer hardware and possibly updates.

2. Intel Management Engine driver ver:9.0.0.1287 (Win 7) This is important software for Intel platforms, install it second. The newer an Intel board is, the more important it is. All of the Intel chipset's feature will not work until this software is installed, you'll even see an error in Device Manager until this software is installed. Difficult to describe, but it really matters.

For the OP, things are not as easy with the IME software. It depends on which CPU you are using, Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge.

After this, order is not really important. Even if your network chip is working, it's best to install its driver, Atheros Lan driver ver:2.1.0.13

The video driver(s) are a personal choice depending upon what you use. If you want to use the onboard video even rarely, you need to install its driver, or be working in a very low resolution mode... which someone might prefer...

For the OP, Realtek Lan driver ver:7048

Probably no audio from the board will work completely or at all without the audio chip driver, Realtek high definition audio driver ver:6.0.1.6873.

For the OP, Realtek high definition audio driver ver:6378.

You'll need both USB 3.0 drivers, Intel USB 3.0 driver ver:2.0.0.102, and Etron USB 3.0 driver ver:1.0.0.115.

For the OP, ASMedia USB 3.0 driver ver:1.10.1.0. Also, for the ASMedia SATA interface, ASMedia SATA3 Driver ver:1.2.2, although the standard Windows 7 msahci driver will work fine.

The rest are optional, depending on your personal usage and what you care about. For me, the best SATA driver for use in AHCI or RAID mode is important, so I always install the Intel IRST driver, for you board Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver and utility ver:12.6.0.1033.

For the OP, Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver and utility ver:10.8.0.1003. It is an older version, but IMO one of the fastest versions of IRST, I used it with my P67 chipset board, and had great benchmark scores. You could use the newer version as above, which might be a little slower in benchmarks.

Intel Rapid Start apparently does not work with all Intel chipsets, such as the H81. It does work with Windows 7 otherwise. You could use Window Hibernate and have pretty much the same result.

As stated above, the rest are feature and utility software. What I think is worthless you may love, and vice versa. Bloatware is in the eye of the beholder.

[WalkToFreedom]

Re: What Drivers do I NEED?

What OS? What OS? What OS....

Sorry! Win7 x64

When you say OP, I'm assuming OP = other person?

Thanks!

[parsec]

Re: What Drivers do I NEED?

Sorry! Win7 x64

When you say OP, I'm assuming OP = other person?

Thanks!

OP = Original Post'er, the person starting the thread.