Video card drivers are crucial components that allow your computer to play video. Since everyone needs to have their video functionality on par these days, it is even more important to keep those video card drivers up to date.

Missing or corrupted video card drivers will seriously hamper your ability to play videos on your machine. You will need to try several different methods in order to identify the cause of your video card problems. Let’s go over how you can quickly troubleshoot your video card.

The download / uninstall / reinstall method

First of all, one of the most effective ways to troubleshoot your video card device driver is what is called the “download, uninstall, and reinstall method.” This method basically involves finding the right driver for your graphics card, installing it, then uninstalling your video card and reinstalling it with the new built-in drivers. Here’s how you can do this:

1. Find out what the make and model of your graphics card is. You can do this by simply opening the “Device Manager” in Windows. Then you will need to expand the entry named “Display adapters”. Opening this menu will allow you to view information related to your graphics card.

2. Connect and navigate to the website of your graphics card manufacturer. Therefore, if you have an ATI graphics card, you will need to visit ati.amd.com. Find the right site, navigate to it, and find the drivers you need. You will need to know how to extract INF files in order to successfully integrate the new drivers.

3. Open Device Manager again. After right-clicking on the icon for your graphics card, click “Uninstall.” Then the operating system will uninstall the outdated graphics card from your machine. You will need to restart the computer after this. Restart.

4. After your computer has restarted, the operating system will locate your graphics card and install updated drivers on it. Follow the installation wizard to complete this.

5. Install the new display drivers simply by double-clicking the display driver installation program. Now your drivers should work properly.

The above-mentioned method can work very well, as long as you know how to install the drivers manually. If you’re not a technical genius, you probably shouldn’t try to install drivers manually as you may end up damaging your system if you make a mistake.

You also need to make sure that you find the right drivers for your graphics card. Downloading the wrong driver can cause a host of unexpected problems.

What if your hardware is out of date?

You can also just have an old graphics card. Sometimes you can only upgrade a graphics card so many times before it doesn’t support the next generation of graphics. So you have to make sure that your video card is not old.

A simple solution: driver update software

However, the most efficient way to get your sound card working again is to use driver update software. Driver update software is an automated process that works by scanning your system for outdated drivers and replacing them with new, working drivers.

Driver update software is also a preventative measure, because you can use it at any time to check and see if your drivers are out of date. In fact, you can stay ahead of the curve by running a driver update scan every now and then. It is a great idea to use a driver update software when you need to repair your video card drivers.