BleepingComputer.com: drivers for clean install

Hello everyone,
Again I need a little advice. I am going to format a desktop PC for a friend. The problem is that she doesn't have her original drivers-cd that came with her pc. Now I know thats not a big item, because they can be downloaded. Because she has very slow internet, I decided to help her and make a CD with her drivers on it. I found sound, video drivers and so on. But I don't know where to find the exact specifications. I looked at the Intel-page, they offer a range of downloads, but I don't know where in the device manager to look for what she needs.
I would apreciate it very much if anyone can give me a little help or advice with this. Again, if I could download it from her PC directly, it would not give me any problem, but I have to download it first on my PC.

Thank you all!!

In order to help, we'll need to know what brand/model the computer is... or if it's generic, the model of the motherboard and any cards fitted such as video card.

Well, thats my question, where do I look for the information, video and sound drivers I have found already, but its about the 'intel-stuff' that I dont know where to look for the specifications (device manager, yes but where?).

That's why we need to know what the computer actually is. All the necessary drivers for the motherboard components will be available from the manufacturer, which is a lot more convenient than identifying many individual components through the ID numbers in Device Manager (although that can be done if necessary).

I assume you are saying the computer is not a brandname like an HP or a Dell, with a model number. If you aren't able to download anything to the system, you can lift the cover and inspect the mainboard for its brand and model, which is usually silkscreened onto the board. Some systems splash a brand logo and mainboard model somewhere on the screen at startup, or give the information in the BIOS setup which you can enter at boot time with the appropriate keypress.

Another possibility is to press Start, choose Run and type in dxdiag, OK, decline the driver checking, then the default System tab may give sufficient information to identify the manufacturer and model to know which driver package to obtain (but on my laptop for example the information is not precise enough).

If you are able to download one or more diagnostic utilities on her behalf, and install on the system, then Everest Free Edition or System Information for Windows should provide the necessary information about the system to let you identify the necessary drivers, or give us enough information so we can point you in the right direction.

Okay, I think I already did a part of what you suggest. I identified the motherboards manufacturer, Asrock. On the asrock-website, I downloaded what I found under the socket (478) and product (p4i65G). I found there the sound, video and some other stuff. But the downloads are all relatively small and I assumed there is missing something (I did this some time ago on my own system, using a driver update tool and I had to download some pretty big files (in my case from nvidia, so maybe thats the difference).

I looked a little more on the asrock-site and tried my own chipset (I also have an asrock motherboard) to see what downloads it gave. If I had to download for my PC it would be some 200 mb. For my friend it is 50 mb. Is it normal that for different types (she has intel celeron, i have AMD, for example) the driversoftware-size differs so much? I am sorry if this is a stupid question, but I am not really very much in motherboards, chipsets and stuff.

Thank you!

This post has been edited by elise025: 08 January 2009 - 07:49 AM

Yes, if you downloaded from here:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=P4i65G

the required files are not large. The INF driver looks after all the Intel requirements.

And typical video driver packs from nVidia are large, as they are a unified pack containing the drivers for many models all in one.

Is her system using the onboard video only, or a separate video card?

Yes, I downloaded from the link you posted. The system uses only onboard video.
Thank you for all your help. Isn't there a good tutorial available for getting used with the basic hardware (I always like to have an idea about with what I am working)?

This post has been edited by elise025: 09 January 2009 - 02:25 AM