question about choosing drivers

[louiedf77]

out of all the different versions of drivers, how can one know which one to choose? Is the newest driver always the best? how can one test a driver other than by using the machine? I have a PC that gives me hell with the sound drivers every so often, If i install a new driver, the sound gets choppy and crackly but, if i install one of the old ones i have in a driver cd, it works fine. if i just try to remove the new one and install the old one, it won't work. I have to install the old driver from a fresh OS install for it to work properly. This happens with win98,ME and w2k. please enlighten me!

[Eric Legge]

There is no point in using the fastest drivers unless you make demanding use of the computer and need it to perform at its peek for activities such as gaming and CAD work. - In which case you will probably upgrade the hardware regularly as well.

You wouldn't notice the difference if you only use your computer for ordinary activities such as running office applications, utilities, and surfing the web.

As you have discovered, new drivers aren't always the best ones, so if the computer works the way you want it to don't update the drivers.

Take care not to update DirectX, because this often requires that the video abd sound card drivers are also updated.

I only apply any updates myself if they fix bugs.

Eric,

http://www.legge40.freeserve.co.uk/BuyerBeware.htm

[Surreal]

Check the fix list for the newer version of the driver. This usually comes with the driver when you download it or will be available from the vendor's web site. If it fixes a problem your having or has additional features you want, then give it a go. If it doesn't ... well its just a bit of time/bandwidth to get it anyway. Newer drivers don't usually cause problems - they're there to fix them.

Your case of course seems to be an exception of course.

Have you tried removing the driver .inf file from your system, uninstalling the hardware through device manager, rebooting (windows afterall...), and then re-installing it?
You should be able to find the .inf file in c:\windows\inf. Look for a filename that matches the .inf file in the driver installation files.
You can also try removing all the other files on your C: that match the driver installation files.

Disclaimer: If you delete something else and your system stops working its not my fault. But you were going to re-install windows anyway, so what the hey?

:)