Should I update my drivers?

[marute]

Hi all. I have a Windows 7 64-bit laptop with the Nvidia GeForce 630M GPU. My current driver version is 285.64 but if I detect my GPU at geforce.co.uk, I'm told that a later version, 301.42, is available for my GPU.

My question to you guys is if I should update the drivers or not? Is it something I should always do or just ignore? Everything works fine and I do not experience problems but I thught I'd ask anyway.

If I should update the GPU drivers, how should I do it? I've actually never tried updating drivers before.

Thankyou all!

 

[marute]

Edit: The same question goes for the CPU driver (and also the other drivers).

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

I always like to keep my drivers updated

 

[marute]

But will there be complications?

I actually once received a driver update on my old laptop through windows update, and it kinda screwed a lot of stuff up. :/ So do I risk 'desroying' anything?

 

[17seconds]

No you will not destroy anything, hardware-wise. In a worst case scenario, you just install different drivers if those mess something up. However, I don't recommend the 301.42 drivers due to some bugs. Instead, you should install the 304.79 drivers, which are newer and rock solid.
http://www.geforce.com/#/

 

[marute]

But those are beta drivers (whatever that means)

Here, it says the newes version is 301.42: http://www.geforce.com/drivers

 

[17seconds]

But those are beta drivers (whatever that means)

Here, it says the newes version is 301.42: http://www.geforce.com/drivers

That's irrelevant in this case. They are official betas. WHQL drivers have gone through the Windows Hardware Quality Labs testing. This, unfotunately, does not mean they are bug-free. Betas, can sometimes be more stable than WHQL drivers, and in fact that is the case here.

If you install betas, you will get a "Warning, these drivers have not passed the... Do you still want to proceed with the installation?" (something or other, can't remember the exact phrase). Just click OK to proceed. I can assure you as a Tom's gold medal "Addict", there is not a single thing to fear with beta drivers. If you still are unsure, then at least try out the 301.42 WHQL drivers.

 

[marute]

Okay, so is it something you should do? Does it matter or can you just as well leave it be?

 

[17seconds]

There might be some performance improvements, maybe some bug fixes.