Slimware Driver Update? Also Q about updating drivers generally

Hardware and technical stuff
1

I heard about this on Maximum PC’s podcast and figured I’d try it out since I’ve had some blue screen issues of late. Well, the software tells me I have a few drivers out of date (particularly Intel ones for various system devices) but when I supposedly update the drivers using the Slimware software, and then check the devices in the Device Manager, almost all of them have the same old dates that the software claimed corresponded to the old drivers (for instance, Intel High Definition Audio stayed with a 2010 driver per the Device Manager). Yet the Slimware software suddenly doesn’t flag it as needing an update.

Separate question: when the DM checks for an updated driver, where does it actually check? Does it try to go to Intel and Realtek etc. websites and all. or does it check the mobo manufacturer’s info or what?

2

forget about bloatware and just google what you need. e.g.:
“intel inf chipset driver” = drivers for intel chipset motherboard
“intel gma xxx driver” intel onboard video driver for old intel gpu’s
“intel hdxxxx driver” intel core i series onboard video driver

3

I second this.

It shits me when you grab the driver from the chipset manufacturer and it is 1mb, but the same (often out of date) driver from the vendor is 60mb in their packaged bloatware installer.

4

Hmm, when I try to run the utility on this page it just goes nowhere–nothing happens:
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect.

My motherboard is the ASUS P8Z68-V-LE, with the z68 chipset. The Slimware app mentioned above says that the latest relevant drivers are from October 2012, but that my OS (Windows 7 64) has stuff from as far back as 2010. I ran some downloadable thing from Intel yesterday but it doesn’t seem to have changed anything. And just today I had another f’ing BSOD, something about a “driver power state failure.” I’ve tested my RAM with memtest86+ latest version and it’s fine. Is the problem my PSU? I want to eliminate outdated drivers as a factor here before I spring for a new one. It really shouldn’t be this arcane to do this.

5

I suggest you do this instead (found in the same page):

Use the Download Center to manually download generic drivers for the products listed above or other products.

EDIT: I’ll just give you the link you need: Download Intel Drivers and Software

found it by googling “intel z68 inf chipset driver”

6

That’s the one I used yesterday and it seems to have left all the Intel drivers just as they were before (pretty much all from 2010 and 2011). So does that eliminate Intel drivers as a possible problem?

7

The last time I had unexplained freezes/crashes, it turned out to be a buildup of dust on the mesh screens in my intake fans, and/or GPU fans. Have you tried cleaning those?