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Common Causes for Driver Errors

Driver Errors

Drivers are software modules that your Windows operating system and various programs installed on it use to talk to the hardware and peripheral devices connected to your computer. These modules basically provide instructions to the software on the PC on how to control and communicate with hardware devices.

Driver errors may occur due to many different reasons. Out of these, the top 3 reasons are:

  • Device not installed or properly connected to the PC.
  • Faulty device driver.
  • Damaged registry and malware infections
  • Malfunctioning device.

Troubleshooting Driver Errors

When a driver error occurs, the first thing you need to do is to check whether the device generating the error is properly connected to your PC or not. For instance, while troubleshooting printer driver errors, you must first check that the printer cable is correctly connected to your printer and the PC. Although this may sound silly, many times people fail to even power on the peripheral device and they unnecessarily get frustrated when the error is generated. So, be sure to check that your peripheral device generating the error is powered on.

Also, if you receive a network driver or display driver error, then you must open up your PC and ensure that the respective adaptors are properly seated in their slots.

After you have checked the connections, you must ensure that the driver of the device is fine. Driver errors may occur when a driver:

  • Installed is buggy or full or errors
  • Is not designed properly.
  • Is incompatible with your version of Windows operating system.
  • Update you have recently installed contains errors.

Use Device Manager to Fix Driver Errors

Device ManagerYou can fix driver errors by using the Device Manager. To open the Device Manager, right-click on the My Computer icon and select Properties. Next, on the Hardware tab, select the Device Manager button to display the Device Manager window. Here, scroll down and identify the faulty device—marked by yellow triangle containing a black exclamation mark and double-click on it.

You can check in the Driver status section of the General tab on the properties dialog box to find out the type of problem that occurring with the device. If the problem is with the device driver, then open the Driver tab on this dialog box. On this tab, you can select the following buttons:

  • Update Driver: If the error is due to an old or incompatible version, then first download the updated version of the driver to your system or get a CD-ROM with the updated driver files, and then select this button to install the updated driver on the system.
  • Roll Back Driver: If the error is occurring due to problems with the recent update, select this button to roll back the driver to earlier installation. For instance, many users encounter cmicnfg.cpl error after they install C-Media WDM Audio Driver update on their system and to repair the error, you may have to roll back the update.
  • Uninstall: If you want to reinstall the driver to repair the error, then first uninstall the current installation by selecting this button and then perform a fresh install.

Driver errors may also occur due to an accumulation of invalid and outdated entries in the registry and malware infections. To prevent these errors, it is recommended that you regularly scan and perform Windows registry fixes with the help of a reliable registry cleaner tool.

In order to prevent malware infiltration to your PC, it is very important that you install efficient antivirus and antispyware tools on your PC. You must keep these tools updated with the latest virus definitions and turn on their real-time protection to ensure that your system is always protected against the latest malware. Also, if a driver error occurs, run a full system scan using both the tools to ensure that the error is not caused due to a malware infection.

If various driver error solutions implemented by you fail, then it is quite likely that the device is faulty, and in this case the only way to fix driver error would be to either get the device repaired or replaced.


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