Is updating drivers a necessity?

DullGreyGuy

[Deleted User] said:

Updating drivers ensures smooth running of the machine and can eliminate bugs and other issues. 

In principle they should eliminate bugs, improve performance and/or close security holes. 

The reality is actually more complex and a new driver may be intended to fix something thats not relevant to your setup but actually break something else and introduce new problems. Becomes more acute in higher performance devices with multiple cards rather than using onboard graphics etc. 

Several firms that sell pre-built machines whilst not at the size of a Dell will offer the relevant drivers for the components based on testing that a blend of drivers work well together rather than just blindly offering up the latest version of all or telling customers to go to go to the component manufacturers websites. 

The last machine I built, many years ago now, was an absolute beast for the first 6 months or so of running. The made the mistake of updating various drivers, bios, firmware etc at the same time and it became very glitchy, never managed to get it back to how it was running before. 

[Deleted User]

BlueonBlue said:

Your probably getting ripped of on that broadband package along with buying into all that you need Norton bolly olly .
Its like those bank accounts people pay for monthly .

Plusnet isnt too bad if you can work a £50-75 credit .......Forget Norton drop it like stone .
 

 Totally disagree. I am quite happy with my broadband package. Thank you! 

cerebus

[Deleted User] said:

Norton is very good. I get it as part of my Broadband package. Windows Defender is not a complete protection system. Updating drivers ensures smooth running of the machine and can eliminate bugs and other issues. 

Only if you have bugs on your machine in the first place, if you don't there is no need to update them

You will be paying over the odds for your broadband package especially when you don't need Norton,  Norton is resource hungry and there is no need to pay for anti virus when there is a very good one built into windows (defender) which is also very regularly updated as part of the updates you have to put up with on windows 10 and 11

BlueonBlue

Im never happy with any Broadband provider .
Givern they give you a contract price then increase that contract price .

If they offered Norton I would know instantly they are playing on ones fears and looking for low hanging fruit .

victor2

I had a friend who swore by Norton. He would regularly bring his laptop to me to sort out because something wasn't working, or it was unusually slow. He'd always say "I've checked it with Norton and ran its cleanup process, so it can't be a virus." It had usually deleted something he needed and he wouldn't let me uninstall Norton because he paid for it.

I just swore at Norton.

Shame really because I remember the good old MS-DOS days, when you would carry a floppy disk around with you with Norton Utilities on it, as they were a set of really useful tools.