[Mooseknuckle]

Does anybody know of a good utility that tells you what drivers you need to install and where to get the most up to date version?

do you have any personal experience with this and is it very reliable?

[Carbon]

Usually the only things you need to reliably update are sound and video card drivers.

Anything automated (i.e. Windows) tends to do a bad job.

[Mooseknuckle]

yes, i understand that but i am saying for a new build. Im not exactly sure what all components i need to install drivers for, so is there a utility out there i can download that will tell me what i need and point me to where i need to go?

[philthomas]

Normally with a new build, you will need the motherboard chipset drivers and any on board device drivers, such as sound, graphics, Lan, SATA etc. .... these will all be provided on the motherboard disk.
Beyond that any additional cards i.e. graphics, sound etc., that you install, will come with a disk containing the drivers.
Anything else .... i.e. generic drivers for Optical Drives, Keyboard, Mouse USB etc. etc., will be installed by Windows.

Once the new build is all installed and configured, you can use a program like Driver Genius Pro, to back up all the drivers, which is quite useful, if you reinstall frequently. It does offer an auto updater feature, but as Carbon said most of these have limitations.

[Mooseknuckle]

ok thanks for the help.

[angoraki]

Try www.drivermax.com - have used it for a while now and it's pretty reliable