Should I upgrade drivers from OEM's website or stay with Acer certified drivers on its website

Hi,

I have an Acer Aspire 5742G notebook which I have been using for about 1.5 years. Noticed that Acer hasn't provided updated drivers for many of the components since mid-2010 (atleast on Acer India website). However, as I have signed up with some of the OEMs for getting intimation on driver updates (such as nVidia for my GeForce GT 420M GPU), and get regular intimations on newer / updated drivers. Just wondering why Acer doesn't provide these on its website too, just to make it a one-stop-shop for drivers for its notebook users.

Is it safe to download and install 'updated' drivers for my notebook components from OEMs' websites or should I stick to ones provided by Acer only (on their website) ? I am not a tech-expert so can't manage re-installing Windows 7 on my own, so am wary of risking any system 'crash' hence seek advise from knowledgeable folks here. Thanks !

Regards,

Ramesh

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Tommy-Acer

Manufacturers tend to support products for a fairly specific set of time and for usually the operating systems that shipped on the system. While newer drivers may be released, that does not mean that a manufacturer will spend the time and/or money to qualify the newer driver on an older system.

For graphics systems, it is generally okay for you to upgrade the drivers if you have a need.
If you are not experiencing a problem, there may not be a need to upgrade.

rameshiyer

Thanks @Acer-Tommy for your response. So far, I have only downloaded & updated newer drivers certified by Acer India and posted on their website www.acer.co.in. However, for sometime now, I have observed that reading text is difficult with the current drivers (of Nov'11). nVidia website offers newer drivers for my GPU - GeForce GT 420M - but as these are not posted on Acer India website, wasn't sure if I should go ahead & update them. Read the Release Notes for the latest drivers - 310.90 released last month, and there seems no major tweek for improving performance or clarity of text / resolution, though it seems to improve gaming experience. As I am not a gamer, and use my notebook for general surfing and preparing documents in Word / Excel etc. I wonder if I will benefit from updating newer drivers available on nVidia website.

Please advise if the newer drivers of nVidia would help improve performance or readability of text on my notebook, making it worth the upgrade. Thank you.

Tommy-Acer

It is possible, but mostly graphics drivers are updated, as you have explained above, to address specific issues with programs.

Have you attempted to adjust your Display settings at all?

Control Panel, Display

You might attempt adjusting the size to Medium or Large, which may improve readability for you.

The only other setting would be to "Adjust ClearType text". There is only ONE checkbox, to turn it on or off.

rameshiyer

Yes, I have tried tweaking Display settings as well as Adjust ClearType Text as you mentioned, but it hasn't improved readability in browsers at all. Strangely, I notice that the readability is affected mainly in web browsers like IE9 and Chrome 23, though it's manageable in Firefox 18. It's fine in MS-Office Suite (Word/Excel) too.

Have taken a leap of faith and updated the latest nVidia Drivers (from nVidia not available on Acer website !) 310.90 and it seems to have made no noticeable difference, though it may have made changes in the drivers' performance technically (i.e. perhaps improves power consumption by GeForce GT 420M GPU ?).

Thanks anyway for your suggestions, and I fully agree with your view that Acer may not bother testing and updating newer drivers from OEMs for products no longer on the shelf.

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