Drivers, the Brain of Your PC
The drivers play a very important role in every computer system. Without drivers, a computer will not be able to work. This is why drivers are referred to as the brain of the PC. This is also the reason why you have to load the drivers after formatting your computer, upgrading to a new operating system, or installing a new hardware.
Drivers are programs that allow for the communication of the operating system and the devices connected to the computer. Drivers are a group of codes, software, or programs designed for all types of computer hardware. Computers need drivers because there is no standard protocol used by hardware manufacturers.
The drivers for your sound card will not work with that of a video card. Also you can’t use the video card drivers of a brand with a competing one. If you have an NVIDIA video card, you can’t use ATI drivers to make it run. You need drivers created by the actual manufacturer of the device.
Drivers are also operating system based. Note that every platform works and processes data in a certain way. As such, you can’t use the drivers that work in a Linux system for that of a Windows or Macintosh computer. And in most instances, you can’t use a Windows 98 driver to work in a Windows XP machine. For the drivers and the hardware to work well, you need to use the one that matches your operating system, device manufacturer, and driver version.
A device will not run without a driver. In more advanced platforms, the drivers are already embedded so you do not have to run drivers individually. Once the device is plugged to the system, the operating system would call on its database of drivers and attempt to load the one it needs to make the device work. If it finds no compatible device on its database, then it would inform the user and ask him to manually install a driver.
It is very important that you load only the right drivers in your system. Experimenting with drivers is not advisable, because doing so would only cause your computer to crash. A system without any driver is like a body without a brain. The computer may be good but its system won’t be able to function. Load the right drivers and your computer would work as good as it should.