Video Cards Can Be A Pain!
Video cards can be tricky business. There are a huge number of them to choose from that range in price from somewhat affordable all the way to sell-your-first-born-child expensive. This only makes finding the one just right for you that much more difficult.
What’s more is once you get your painstakingly picked graphics card in your hands you then have to: open up your PC, get the old video card out of there, get the new one installed, close the PC back up, and finally boot up your PC with your shiny new video card snugly inside.
But, what do you find when you turn on your PC? Your computer turns on, and you see everything behaving normally save for one bizarre thing. Everything looks really fuzzy and really low resolution. What’s happened? Did you install the video card wrong?
You begin to your hunt around the worldwide web to find… your video card drivers are out of date! How obnoxious! Now, after all this work you have to do more research to figure out how to update your graphics drivers even after all the hard work you’ve put into buying and installing the card.
Well, search no further, dear reader. I’ve done all the research you’ll need and I’m here to show you how to update video card drivers for your video card.
Drivers Are A Solution for PC Gaming Woes, Too
Now perhaps you didn’t just buy a new graphics card. Perhaps you were hoping to play the latest and greatest computer game (or another new, graphics heavy application) but it just isn’t working right with your PC. Updating your video card drivers should be among the first things you should try. I know it’s definitely my first go-to solution when troubleshooting gaming and application problems.
No matter what your issue, getting those video card drivers up to date is a good a habit to keep your PC in shape; something you should look into if you’re looking to learn more about your PC.
A Short Quest For A Name
The first question you must ask yourself is, “what kind of video card do I have?” You must know the manufacturer of your GPU in order to obtain drivers and there are a couple of ways to go about this.
If you just bought your card or built your own custom PC (perhaps by following these guides) you should be able to look at the box it came in, or at least find the purchase receipt and find the name of your card there.
If you don’t have either of these, or you just don’t know the name of your card then follow these steps.
For Windows 7:
1. Open the start menu, type in the search bar: “Device Manager” (Don’t include the quotes), and click on the result named “Device Manager”
2. In the window that pops up find the entry called “Display adapters” and expand this entry using the arrow just to the left of “Display adapters”
3. The entry that shows up after expanding “Display adapters” is the name of your video card. Remember this name!
For Linux:
1. Open the terminal and type lspci –v
2. Look for an entry beginning with “VGA compatible”
3. The entry on this line is the name of your graphics card. Remember it!
Where To Go, How To Get There
What happens next depends on the results of the short search you just did. Each manufacturer keeps their driver downloads on their respective website. The result you found above should begin with the manufacturer that made your card. This is the name you are especially interested in.
So, skip to the section titled after your video card manufacturer to get your drivers downloaded and installed.
Intel
1. Do a Google search for “Intel Driver Update Utility” and open the first link
2. Towards the middle of the page is a blue button named “Check your system for updates.” Click this button
3. When the site finishes checking for available drivers for your graphics card, it will automatically display the results. Find the section titled “Graphics Driver” and expand it
4. In the box that appears, click the “Download Now” button towards the right and save the file that appears
5. When the download finishes, open the executable and follow the instructions given
6. After the installation finishes, you can repeat steps 1 through 3 and check that the expanded box now says “Your driver is current.”
7. Your drivers are now installed!
AMD
1. Do a Google search for “AMD Graphics Drivers and Software” and open the first link
2. Follow the steps (1 through 5) to pick out the graphics card you found in the section above
3. After clicking “Display results” click the Download link for “Catalyst Software Suite”
4. When the download completes, open the program and follow the instructions for installation
5. Your drivers are now installed!
Nvidia
1. Search Google for “Download NVIDIA Drivers” and open the first link
2. On this page, find Option 2 and click the button under this heading on the right labelled “Graphics Drivers”
3. Allow the Java program to run and determine the necessary drivers
4. If the Java program cannot find your driver, use Option 1 to fill out the information about the video card you found in the last section
5. Select the driver that Nvidia has found for you, click the “Download” button and allow the file to download
6. When the download completes, run the downloaded program and follow the instructions to install the drivers
7. When the installation is complete, you’re done. You’ve updated your drivers!
Nothing Left But To Enjoy
That wasn’t too difficult, was it? Once you learn where to go, video card drivers are straight forward business. It’s just that initial research that can be so frustrating. But, this guide and guides like this can make taking care of your PC so much easier.
Now that you’ve found your drivers, you should find yourself loving the full capabilities of your video card. Enjoy!
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