As the true heart of your computer, the motherboard contains the interfaces for your hard drives, RAM, processor and other devices, and in some cases also contains video circuitry and on-board network chips. As with all computer devices, the different components on your motherboard also require drivers to communicate with your operating system. Some of the drivers come from Windows’ own driver store, others from the computer or motherboard manufacturer. You can identify the motherboard drivers via Device Manager.
Click Start, type “devmgmt.msc” (without quotes) in the Search box and press “Enter.”
Expand “Display Adapters.” If your computer has built-in video – referred to as “integrated video” – the driver for the video chips on your motherboard is shown here. Disregard if you have a dedicated graphics card.
Open “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.” If you have an integrated drive electronics, or IDE hard drive, the interface it plugs into on your motherboard is called a controller. IDE has been replaced by SATA for the most part, so if your computer is fairly new, it might not have an IDE controller.
Double-click “IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers.” Underneath, you’ll find drivers for any Firewire controllers on your motherboard.
Expand “Network adapters.” If your computer has a built-in network adapter, it’ll be shown here, usually under the AMD or Intel brand name.
Open “Sound, video and game controllers.” Here, you’ll find the controller drivers for your sound and video adapters.
Double-click “Storage controllers.” Listed here are Serial ATA, or SATA, controller drivers. Unless your computer is an older model, you probably have a SATA hard disk. The controller is its interface with your motherboard. Depending on your computer’s configuration, you might also have a redundant array of independent disks, or RAID controller. RAID is a storage technology mostly used in servers that enables you to combine several disks into a single volume, mirror them for redundancy and utilize other advanced options.
Expand “Universal Serial Bus controllers.” Listed here are all your USB controller drivers.
Open “System devices.” You’ll find the remaining motherboard drivers here, including your memory controller, PCI bus driver, system speaker and clock.
- Right-clicking on any listed driver opens a menu enabling you to uninstall or update the driver. If you uninstall a driver, clicking on the “Scan for hardware changes” icon at the top of the Device Manager window will prompt Windows to reinstall it.
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