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Video Drivers

Working with your video drivers

Your computer requires a variety of hardware devices in order to be a complete system. For example, it needs a motherboard, CPU, memory, hard disk, monitor, keyboard, and countless other devices. The graphics processing unit, or video card, is responsible for what you see on your computer screen.

Video cards require video drivers in order to work properly. When you have a problem with your display, oftentimes the video drivers have become corrupt, disappeared, or need updating. File corruption can affect any type of computer file including video drivers. Common causes of file corruption include power surges or outages, computer crashes, improper system shutdown, and computer viruses.

Potential video driver problems

Video drivers can also go missing thanks to computer viruses, accidental deletion, and other causes. When video drivers are corrupt or have disappeared, the graphics processing unit may no longer function as expected. Rebooting the computer may help if your video driver has disappeared. By rebooting, Windows should automatically detect the hardware and load generic or possibly specific video drivers.

How updating your video drivers can solve your problems

Updating the video drivers when the video card is malfunctioning can help you restore the functionality of the graphic processing unit. In addition, updating video drivers is advisable even when your video card is working as designed. This is because graphics card manufacturers continually improve their products and release these improvements through updated video drivers.

For example, ATI usually provides video driver updates monthly for its Radeon cards. Video drivers for ATI Radeon cards are quite sophisticated. With regular updates and improvements made, updating these video drivers periodically ensures that you have the latest enhancements as well as repairs made.

The Device Manager, which is found in the Control Panel, will help you to identify your graphics card and video driver's version information. You can even use Device Manager to update the video drivers without going to the manufacturer's Web site.

If you prefer to download the video drivers directly from the manufacturer's Web site, you must know the exact model of your device, driver version, and operating system that you are running. Video card drivers are designed to communicate information about the video card to your operating system in a language that it can understand. Installing video drivers designed for the wrong operating system won't work.

Another option is to enable Windows Update on your computer. Not only does Microsoft provide updates for their own products, they often release device drivers, including many popular video drivers, through this service. The downside of this is that you don't necessarily know if Microsoft will be providing your specific video driver update or not.

The fastest way to manage and update your device sound drivers

A better way exists: DriverCure. Instead of working with Device Manager, visiting Web sites, or searching for video drivers, let this software do it for you – for all of your drivers, not just video drivers.

DriverCure scans your computer's hardware, notes the versions of each driver, and seeks out specific drivers for each piece of hardware found on your computer. Plus, it will do this as often as you want so that you always have the most current drivers and hardware improvements.