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Installing Intel drivers rather than Gigabyte's

forumjoe

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Installing Intel drivers rather than Gigabyte's
« on: February 15, 2012, 02:35:34 pm »
I'm shortly going to fit a replacement HDD to my P55-US3L and so install my OS and software all from scratch. When it comes to the mobo drivers, this time I'm going to try Intel's rather than Gigabyte's. Primarily, these will be the INF drivers.

According to what I see in Device Manager on my machine, my chipset is Intel 5 Series 3400. Not sure but I think I've found the correct Intel driver here:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%C2%AE+Chipset+Software+Installation+Utility

 - the one at the top of the list, v.9.3.0.1019, dated 12/4/2011. The interactive executable for this is infinst_autol.exe, which it seems to me would be the most sensible version to download and use.

Looking at the ReadMe and Release notes on the subsequent webpages, though, it's not clear to me whether I'll need to add any sort of commandline flag to get the files to fully install. Can anyone advise me on this? It's always been my understanding that when you execute an exe file, you merely follow the subsequent instructions to completion, nothing more. I've never met a situation where, some way through, you revert to commandline mode.

Is the Intel website just badly written in respect of advice on this, or am I missing a trick?

Lsdmeasap

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Re: Installing Intel drivers rather than Gigabyte's
« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2012, 06:08:17 pm »
Yes, you want that first link on the page you mention, the EXE.   You can use the -overall flag if you want in CMD window, but it's not something you have to do

If you are using AHCI mode, you should also install the latest Intel RST drivers too, you can get those here (You want third link)
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProductFamily=Chipsets&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%C2%AE+Rapid+Storage+Technology



forumjoe

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Re: Installing Intel drivers rather than Gigabyte's
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2012, 11:40:56 pm »
Thanks for your view on this, lsdmeasap. I have to confess that I'm perplexed at the notion of initiating an exe file but apparently then finding at some stage a commandline interaction. But I suppose I'll just have to try it and see. If I were to be unavoidably presented with a CMD window, my reaction would be to leave it alone and not add any flag at all. But then I've been wondering whether that would mean that the drivers then wouldn't get installed and applied properly.

I don't use RAID, so I'll not need to bother with those RST drivers. Thanks for the tip about them, though.

Lsdmeasap

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Re: Installing Intel drivers rather than Gigabyte's
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2012, 05:50:53 pm »
Command line/window install is optional, you don't have to do it that way you can just click the EXE to install and it will be fine.

Those drivers I mention also apply to AHCI systems, and you should be using AHCI so you'll want to update to those too!

forumjoe

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Re: Installing Intel drivers rather than Gigabyte's
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2012, 12:11:54 pm »
One thing that's connected with this forthcoming reinstall of the chipset drivers is the old chestnut of "whither the UAA driver?". It's been quite some time since I originally got my P55-US3L system going but, to this day, it's not been clear to me whether I should be using the Microsoft UAA audio driver, which is offered by Gigabyte in two formats - bundled with the Azalea codec driver, and standalone. Specifically, I don't use the onboard Azalea audio. Instead, I use a PCI soundcard of proven integrity. The trouble has been, though, that, with my P55-US3L, there's been a persistent problem with the audio, in that if I stop the audio within an application and then restart it, it immediately distorts and becomes completely unlistenable and unintelligible; if I then reboot and re-run it, it's fine.

It's been unfortunate for me that I started with a Seagate HDD that, unknown to me at the time, had a manufacturing fault with its built-in controller (it being the sole HDD I use on the machine). Although the audio problem showed up immediately, it wasn't until much later that I realised from other symptoms that there was a more general problem with the HDD. Seagate then provided a partial solution to the controller issue, which appeared to cure most of the HDD's problems - but not the audio one.

I've learnt to live with the audio problem to some degree. But, all along, I've wondered whether it's been caused by lack of that UAA driver. I didn't, at the start, install the UAA driver simply because I honestly reckoned it wasn't required. But, as I say, I do now wonder.

I use the Windows default soundcard drivers, provided with the soundcard, and they've always worked fine on previous machines of mine. I've never before needed to install the UAA driver when using a separate soundcard. It's just that, in retrospect, I can't see why Gigabyte should be offering the UAA driver separately unless it's perhaps also required when a PCI or PCIe soundcard is used, regardless of what other audio drivers may be being used.

Lsdmeasap

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Re: Installing Intel drivers rather than Gigabyte's
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2012, 08:00:20 pm »
UAA driver will be installed via Realtek or other (MS) audio drivers, not the chipset so you don't have to worry about that.

Since you use a PCI sound card you do not need those drivers, in any format, you'd want to install the drivers from the manufacturer of the card.  For any board you are using onboard audio, you should download the drivers directly from Realtek.

forumjoe

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Re: Installing Intel drivers rather than Gigabyte's
« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2012, 11:41:37 am »
Okay, understood.

I guess my audio problem has been caused all along by an aspect of the HDD's malfunction, then.

Lsdmeasap

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Re: Installing Intel drivers rather than Gigabyte's
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2012, 06:43:27 pm »
It might be!   You could test on another windows install on a spare drive if you have one around, this way you could verify that.