How to Safely Update Ethernet Drivers

Let's be honest, outdated Ethernet drivers are a real pain. Dealing with broken,  missing, or out-of-date Ethernet drivers will probably interfere with your ability to access the Web. This is particularly frustrating because you have to go online to update your Ethernet drivers. As a result, you're hamstrung, because the device that enables web access is malfunctioning, so you can't get the driver you need.

Essentially, you've got to download Ethernet drivers from a different computer and then transfer the updated drivers to the computer with the malfunctioning driver. If this is the case, it's important to follow some simple protocol so you can fix your Ethernet driver as quickly as possible.

Ethernet Driver Basics

Ethernet drivers are tools that help your computer recognize new hardware. Your computer requires a functioning Ethernet driver so that your operating system can utilize any hardware that was recently installed. An Ethernet driver that is out-of-date is virtually unrecognizable to your operating system. Your OS simply won't know what to do with such a device.

Most hardware manufacturers contain product support information on their websites. Also, they'll offer driver downloads so that you can update your driver easily. Here, we'll take a look an Intel's website as an example.

Click on the “Support” link. This will redirect you to a page where you can browse and search for drivers.

Just enter pertinent information, such as your Ethernet card's make and model, to locate the proper driver.

Download the driver by double-clicking the link. When the download dialog box opens, click “Save”, not “Run”. Clicking “Save” will save the driver to your hard disk.

Then, you should save the driver to a transferable media so that you can use it in a different computer.

Installing New Ethernet Drivers

Once you've entered the media into the right computer, double-click the driver icon. When the warning screen appears, click “Run” to start the installation wizard. The Install Wizard will then start up, and all you have to do is follow a few easy steps to install the driver.

It can be difficult to find the right driver, especially when you're dealing with Ethernet cards.

A much better alternative is to run a comprehensive driver update program. A good driver program will actually scan your system for missing or outdated drivers. Then, the software will provide you with handy updates for these drivers.

In this case, all you have to do is save the new drivers onto some sort of transferable media, such as a CD-R, CD-RW, or flash drive. Then, move the transferable media over to the affected computer and install the drivers.

Once you've installed the updated drivers, restart your computer, then open your Network Diagnostics and run a basic connection test. If you can connect to the Internet, then you've fixed your Ethernet driver issue. Congratulations!