Chipset Drivers - 945 Express Chipset Family

If all the hardware devices are working properly, I would suspect that Win 7 installed the needed chipset drivers.  The chipset drivers are not part of the Operating System but Windows could have accessed the web and installed them. One of the prime things the chipset drivers do is define all the hardware devices on or attached to the motherboard and the sound drivers cannot be installed without the chipset drivers.

The Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility is the chipset drivers.  I have a Retail Intel motherboard and that is what I download for my motherboard for the chipset drivers. 

Which version to install, depends.  My Win 7, 64 bit system, that has the Intel motherboard is using an old Vista chipset driver as Intel does not have a Windows 7 speific driver and it's working fine (actually the chipset drivers are not Operating System specific like some of the other device drivers).

Just for reference, the correct and required Dell install sequence is (1) Install Windows (2) Install Dell Desktop or Laptop System Software (on applicable models), (3) Install chipset drivers (4) Install device drivers including sound video, ethernet, etc.  

If all the hardware devices are working properly, I would suspect that Win 7 installed the needed chipset drivers.

Is it worth me trying to update the chipset to the latest version then or can you only do that when installing a new operating system?

Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 7 will contain the necessary chipset drivers if the driver manufacture  provided them to Micro Soft.

If you have no bangs next to any devices listed in device manager then you have what ever is the current drivers for your system.

Apologies but I am getting a bit confused with this. There are certainly no bangs listed in device manager against anything but I do not see the chipset driver itself listed here. I assume it is not supposed to be listed.

By looking at the registry under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

SOFTWARE

INTEL

INFINST

VERSION = 8.1.1.1010

This I understand to be the driver version for the chipset.

If I go to the Intel website there is a newer version 9.1.1.1025

Should I download that driver to update or am I asking for problems if I do so?. In other words can you only install / update a chipset driver immediately after  the first stage of installing Windows 7 or can an update be installed at any subsequent time?

Thanks for you help.

The chipset by itself does not have a listing. it is buried amongst the other devices like your PCI section, disk controllers and such.

The chipset drive has many parts and what you find in the registry is only one small part and is most likely only one part of the entire driver package which is made up of various files. so all may not have the same version number as the driver package listing.

Normally win 7 will push any newer drive updates. My self unless you are having some issues would not worry about it.

Thank you. All is running fine so I will leave it well alone.

Cheers

Thank you. All is running fine so I will leave it well alone. Cheers

Unlike XP, Windows 7 will download and install drivers automatically if you wish.

Also, there is an Intel chipset installation utility that can be downloaded from Intel's site. It contains all the latest chipset drivers.