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Installing USB Drivers

USB, an acronym which stands for "universal serial bus," a standardized protocol for communication with external peripherals. Essentially any kind of data can be sent by USB, making its potential application extremely far reaching. To apply this potential, many different types of devices have been designed to interface using this standard. A few examples would be printers, scanners, web-cameras, hard drives, DVD writers, keyboards, mice, and honestly just about any other peripheral you could even think of! If you're a user who plans on using USB often, and most of us are, it's important to make sure that our hardware can communicate efficiently and effectively with our operating system, whatever it may be. In just about every modern computer intended for the home consumer, USB ports come soldered on and integrated into a computer's "motherboard," also referred to as a "mainboard." Some users may require additional access to open ports, and may subsequently choose to install an upgrade "card" which contains additional ports and connects to a special place on the motherboard with a wire. It is with these upgrade cards that many users encounter issues with their operating system's inability to automatically detect their hardware and install the correct drivers. Occasionally it will occur with the USB hub component on a computer's motherboard as well, though less common.

To ensure that your drivers are from the correct source, if you are using a third party USB port upgrade card you will need to figure out the name of the company that manufactured it. Type their name into whichever search engine you prefer to use and locate their official website. Here you should be able to find a link to a page entitled something similar to "Drivers" or "Support," or even perhaps "Downloads." You will be asked to choose for which model of hardware you are requesting device drivers, and subsequently taken to its specific page. For a card, there should be only one driver download file for your operating system. Once it is installed, you may reboot to apply the system changes and the ports should be functioning properly.

On the other hand, if the drivers that you are attempting to locate are to be applied to the type of USB ports which are integrated into the motherboard mentioned previously, you will need to navigate to the official website of the motherboard manufacturer instead. Since there are a great number of components built into the motherboard with very different jobs, most of them have their own separate driver download files. If you need updated drivers for other unrecognized components on your motherboard or need a general driver update as well, there may be available to you a bundled driver install that well take care of them all in one instance. Be aware however that if this option is offered the size of the download will be considerably larger. The USB-specific driver will be clearly marked in a list along with the others. Download it and install the same as you would any driver, and be sure to follow any specific instructions provided or carefully read any "Readme" files included.

There is a utility that Microsoft Windows has built into it that allows the user to manage all of the installed and detected but not yet installed hardware on their machine. This includes all peripherals and major internal components. It's called the device manager, and the easiest way to access it is to right-click on the "My Computer" icon and select properties from the menu. A new window with many tabs will appear, one of which is labeled "Hardware." Click this tab and find the "Device Manager" button to launch it. Another window will appear which contains entries for every piece of hardware on your machine. It displays any devices which don't yet have the correct drivers loaded next to a yellow bubble containing an exclamation mark. Use this tool to update, rollback, and check the implementation of drivers on your system during new installs and upgrades.