Sound Drivers

Working with your sound drivers

Unless you have a barebones workstation, your computer has a soundcard and speakers. Sound cards also have input jacks and headphone jacks so that you can plug in a microphone or headphones. In order for all of these features to work, a small program called a sound card driver is installed alongside the hardware. At their most basic, sound drivers are responsible for explaining to Windows exactly what the soundcard is capable of and how to control it.

If you play a music CD in your computer's CD drive and the music successfully makes it to your speakers, you're probably happy with the audio drivers. After all, the music is playing and you can hear it. However, soundcard drivers are regularly updated by the device's manufacturer adding improvements and repairing bugs. Soundcards are notorious for causing problems with other devices.

Keep sound quality high with regular sound driver updates

Because issues are often resolved by the manufacturer and released in the form of updated sound drivers, it's in your best interest to update your drivers regularly. Not only will you keep your card current, you'll likely enjoy new features as they're released.

Soundcard drivers are also updated periodically to accommodate new operating systems such as Windows Vista. For example, if you have an existing computer that you'll be upgrading from XP to Vista, you'll first need to check hardware compatibility. Does your existing sound card have an audio driver for Vista? If so, terrific! If not, you may need to wait until one is released or purchase a new soundcard if you proceed with the upgrade.

How to update your Sound drivers manually

You can check the status of your computer's sound card by going into the Device Manager. You can find Device Manager in the Control Panel as an icon. If you can't find it in the first view, click on the System icon and look for it there. Once Device Manager is open, you'll see a list of hardware types. Click Sound, Video, and Game Controllers. Next, click the double-device that has a speaker icon next to it.

The General tab will list the sound card's name and manufacturer as well as its current status. The Driver tab identifies the audio driver's provider, version, date, and more. To update the driver, click on the Update Driver button and follow the prompts for automatic searching.

If you want to go to the soundcard driver's manufacturer Web site in search of updated drivers, jot down the driver information such as version number and date before doing so. This way you can compare versions to see if you have the most current version or if you should update it.

Next, go to the appropriate Web site. For example, if you have a Realtek sound driver, head to Realtek's Web site. Likewise, if you have a Creative Labs sound card, go to Creative Lab's web site and begin your search.

Once you've located and downloaded the audio drivers, you'll need to install them using Device Manager's Update Driver button unless the manufacturer provides you with a different sound driver update method.

Manage and update all your device sound drivers with a single tool

Just as sound drivers need to be updated periodically, so does the rest of the hardware on your computer. If you thought this task was time-consuming simply updating audio drivers, imagine how much time it takes to go through the entire list of devices found on your computer. For best results, you should perform this task every month or so. DriverCure can do all of this on your behalf for all devices on your system. Why struggle when you can automate?

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Sound Drivers

Working with your sound drivers

Keep sound quality high with regular sound driver updates

How to update your Sound drivers manually

Manage and update all your device sound drivers with a single tool