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Windows Hardware
When installing, replacing or upgrading hardware in windows it is important that you know your computer.
If your computer is a factory built computer from a major computer company (Dell, HP, IBM...) and it is the original motherboard, you can usually get or download the information you need from the company's website using model numbers or service tags found on your computer. If your computer is custom built or has had its motherboard replaced you should open the box and look for identification numbers on the motherboard. A couple of examples of motherboard identification numbers are SIS-741GX and P4MAM2-V (also check revision numbers). Then google the number and if possible, go to your motherboard manufacturers website. You can usually get all the info you need from your motherboard manufacturers website in the form of manuals and compatibility lists. Manuals will usually have reasonably detailed instructions for installation. After you have verified your hardware compatibility and installed your hardware you need to install drivers for your hardware. If your lucky the drivers that are built into windows will work for your hardware and will be installed automatically. The built in drivers will not always provide full functionality for your hardware, which is often the case for video devices. If your device does not work or is not providing the performance it should you will need to install drivers for your hardware manually. If your computer has internet access you can try to install drivers using windows update. Open the device manager, right click on your device (may be a yellow question mark) and select update driver. There are two easy to access the device manager. One way is to right click on your computer icon, either on the desktop or in the start menu. This brings you to the system properties interface. You can also access this interface from the system icon in the control panel. Then click the hardware tab and then the device manager button. After selecting your device and the update driver option you will see a dialog box that asks if your computer can check windows update for software. Check that box and choose install software automatically. Windows will look for an updated driver from microsoft and if available it will install it automatically. You can also download the driver (software) from another source. Most hardware manufacturers provide driver downloads on their websites. Driverguide.com is an extremely good website that provides a massive database of device drivers (make sure you get the right driver for your version of windows). We provide a link to their website on our link page. Some drivers may have setup or executable files that will install the driver for you. If that is not the case extract the files (if they are in a compressed archive) and make a note of the folder location. Then open the device manager, right click on the device (may be a question mark) and select update driver. In this case instead of choosing to install the software automatically select to install from a list or specific location. You can then browse to the folder that contains the downloaded files and install the driver. If you try procedure and it does not work make sure you have the correct driver for you version of windows. If you download a drivers from driverguide.com you may to try more than one in order to find one that works. Also keep in mind that many devices require third party software for use (tv tuner cards need a media player capable of reading the signal). The ideal place to get hardware drivers is from the hardware manufacturers website.