We study how to install the driver on a graphics card

Today we will talk about how to install the driver on the video card. Although a similar topic has been repeatedly raised both in printed educational publications and in the pages of various forums and websites, it is still in demand. The reason for this is the cost reduction of computing systems. The matter is that many people, having bought the first home computer, face questions which for users with the experience are represented elementary. One of them is how to install the driver on a video card. In this article, we will try to respond to it in detail, clarifying the main points. But first a bit of theory.

In any computer (servers and remotely controlled systems we do not consider) a video card is necessarily installed. Structurally, this device can be represented by a separate small textolite board, with decoupled chips, electronic components and a comb of sliding contacts, through which it is connected to the connector on the motherboard. Such a solution is called discrete. Its opposite is a video adapter built into the CPU (chipset). This was made possible by improving the manufacturing process of controlled keys - transistors, and placing several devices on a single chip of the chip. In order to understand how to install the driver on a video card, this difference can be ignored, since the principle of operation of both solutions is the same.

It is not enough simply to physically connect the video card to the board (discrete version). It is necessary to install a special control program in the system, which serves as a kind of "intermediary" between all other software and hardware components of the computer and video adapter. That is, drivers for the video card are needed.

They can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website. So, the most widespread solutions were from NVidia, ATI (AMD) and Intel. First you need to determine the model of the card, it is listed on the box. You can also use the utility GPU_Z. After specifying the operating system and model on the site, you need to download the driver. Typically, this is one executable file. After that, you just need to start it. If you receive a warning about installing an unsigned driver, you can safely ignore it. For ATI solutions, the Net Framework package must be installed on the system (downloaded from the Microsoft website). But it's easy. And how to install the driver on the video card, if for some reason the standard method did not work?

Sometimes it's possible. First you need to extract the files of the downloaded archive. There are two ways: when starting (even if its final result is unsuccessful), a folder is created on the disk that contains everything you need; Forcibly unpack the installation package using Total Commander by clicking on the file Ctrl + Page Down and copying the contents to the previously created folder. Next, open the Device Manager (the properties of the shortcut "Computer") and proceed to "Video adapters - Driver - Update - Install from a specified location". In the window that appears, you need to specify the folder with the unpacked files, but not any, but those whose extension is inf. If the driver is suitable for the system, it will be installed, albeit with a series of warnings (you can ignore it).

You can also update the "firewood" on the video card using the service of the operating system. To do this, in the "Start - Control Panel - Update" you need to allow downloading of non-main files.