What You Need To Know About Finding The Right Driver For Your Laptop

Getting the right driver is essential for your computer and your peripherals. It might even be detrimental to the health of your entire network. In this article you will learn about what a driver is, what you need to know to determine what driver you need and where you can get the right device drivers for you computer.

What is a driver anyway? A driver is a small piece of software that is installed on your computer. It is software that “drives” a device. Your computer needs to know how to get each individual device working, whether it’s installed or plugged in, so if you consider the driver as the instructional manual that your computer reads, you can get the picture. You need the right device driver for your computer, because not all device drivers are created equally.

The device is based upon both your device and your operating system. A printer driver won’t be the same for your Vista machine as a video card driver. Without the right device driver, the computer becomes illiterate. If you have drivers for the same device but on two different operating systems, there are differences. Some people will also describe a driver as a liaison or a translator between the computer and the peripheral. Anything you add onto your computer can require a driver. Some items are considered plug and play but many require just a small program to act as that translator or instruction manual.

You may need device drivers when you install a piece of hardware or plug it in. You may also need device drivers when you do an operating system upgrade or a hard drive formatting. Sometimes our drivers are not compatible with new systems and other times we need new copies just because there was something corrupt on our computer that disrupted the integrity of the driver or deleted the software.

If you don’t install the right driver, not only will your device be unlikely to work but you could cause other problems. When a computer is looking for a device to initialize or command and it cannot find it, it can cause other networking problems including fatal errors. Be sure that when you download a driver, not only does the manufacturer and model number of the peripheral match but also that the operating system matches as well. This is something that is discussed in more detail on the website http://www.laptopdriverstoday.com, which is filled with information on how to find the right driver for your laptop.

There are programs that can help you find the right drivers whether you are having problems with your computer after an upgrade or if you are determining what your requirements for upgrading an operating system will be. Beyond this, manufacturers and third party websites exist to guide you and help you find the right driver.

You might require drivers for any number of devices including: monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, plotter, USB port, Bluetooth device, video cards, PCMCIA cards and other hardware as well. But whatever you need it for, the golden rule is to make sure that the device driver is the right one or you could end up with malfunctioning equipment, not to mention a bad headache.