it's a good point. I don't think M$ update is really the way to go for hardware drivers, although obv it's essential for security updates, hotfixes and service packs,etc. I've had a few problems with it as regards hardware, esp ATi catalyst drivers. Whenever I let M$ Update install them, they are poontang, but if i d/l direct from ATi, they work just fine.

This is true - normally i wouldn't let M$ update anywhere near my drivers. That said and as much experience as i have with tampering with my PC it simply hadnt occured to me that the sound chip was not via untill i reinstalled last week. You know how very, very obvious things slip past... well any way i had benchmarked my drives while looking for further system tweaks or cheapish ways to improve performace and found that my 'cheap as chips' 80GB secondary drive had 2x the raw access capability of my C: drive that came with the system (4yr old evesham machine)... swap and reinstall and take note of whats said on sound driver installation from mobo disk... read whats there not what you think is there...

+++ out of cheese error - redo from start +++

Edited by - anton on 9/24/2005 9:50:37 AM

many Intel-chipset boards also use Realtek on-board sound controllers - mine does, but I don't use it . I'm not convinced that on-board sound really offers that much, although it's great for saving money and bother, I'd still rather have a separate sound-card - and there are some really superb ones on the market at the moment, especially if you stay clear of Creative. That's not to say Creative aren't good, the Audigy 2 is still an excellent piece of kit esp for gamers, but there are better, for less.

On-board sound (and graphics, etc) is as much about ease of manufacture and assembly and hence lower cost as much as it's about convenience for the user. It probably saves anywhere between 30mins - 1 hour on build times for PCs, which if you're knocking out 20 or 30 pcs a day is a substantial saving in time. Costwise it saves the builder between 50 -100 pounds if sound/graphics/network are all onboard, and with the minimal margins most builders make on PCs, that's a real bonus. if it wasn't for onboard peripherals, PCs would be 20% or so higher in cost than they are now.

People who use VIA Chipsets are strongly encouraged to download and install the 4-in-1 (Hyperion) drivers as part of their standard install. If you use Windows XP, you can get those drivers here.

If you use other OSes, click here, choose your OS, then click "Chipset Driver".

Enjoy!