Hello Rad, I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate people like you. You take your personal time to share what you know with us unknowing people and we become knowing becuase of you Thanks.

Anyway I read your piece on System Stability and I was wondering from your point of view or anyone else that might know is it best to install the chipset drivers your mobo manufacturer makes or use the default MS Window's chipset drivers?

Thanks Agian.

Good question. No easy answer.

In some cases, you *must* install manufacturer's chipset drivers, cuz the Microsoft versio simply isn't included with the O/S you're using.

All things being equal (which they're not, such as different chipset manufacturers), the boys at Microsoft have their shit together when it comes to writing/testing/approving drivers. I don't know what kind of testing lab they have set up, but, simple fact is that their drivers work.

You might not eek out evey last bit of performance with MS drivers, but you're generally confident that they offer the most stable option.

Problems can arise if there's a long lag time following MS's release/version. Then it may be necessary to use a newer manufacturer's version/release. But even then, it's far from a sure thing.

For example, Intel sppt kept notifying me of updates (both beta & release) of its ATA100 controller drivers. Seems like no matter what they did, I always managed to experience some quirky problems with them. ATA drivers ain't chipset drivers, but they're made by the manufacturer (Intel) and they replaced Microsoft's (ATA66) drivers.

I'd recommend *always* create a pre-update image (Ghost), in case I began noticing quirky stability problems. Then you can go back, painlessly.

Short answer: Microsoft. If MS's are getting old, make a back-up image, cross your fingers & try the latest version from the manufacturer. Generally newer is better, but not always. I get more nervous about installing _any_ manufacturer's drivers than I do with drivers from MS, or MS-approved.