Should I Install Monitor Drivers or Use Windows Pre-installed Drivers on New System?

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On Black Friday I succumbed to buying a new Lenovo Win10 desktop with Intel corei3 processor at a ridiculously low price and Samsung led 22″ monitor as well. They replace a reliable 9 year old WinXP eMachines which is no longer supported. I’m new to Win10 and just starting to get some feel for it.

I plugged the monitor into the PC with a HDMI cable and fired it up. Since I hadn’t installed the monitor’s drivers, I didn’t expect to see a bright well defined screen but was pleasantly surprised. The resolution was set at 1920×1080. I had trouble reading email so I lowered the resolution to 1600×900.

Should I install the monitor’s drivers off the cd or keep using what I assume are pre-installed ones on Win10?

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Check the Samsung site for Windows 10 drivers. The ones included with Windows 10 are very basic. That may be sufficient for a monitor but if there are any special features in the device they will most likely only be enabled by an OEM driver.

BTW, LCD/LED monitors work best when used at the default resolution. Instead of lowering the resolution trying increasing the text size. Right click on a blank spot on the desktop, select “Display Settings”, use the slider to change the text size.

Joe

--Joe

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Check the Samsung site for Windows 10 drivers. The ones included with Windows 10 are very basic. That may be sufficient for a monitor but if there are any special features in the device they will most likely only be enabled by an OEM driver.

BTW, LCD/LED monitors work best when used at the default resolution. Instead of lowering the resolution trying increasing the text size. Right click on a blank spot on the desktop, select “Display Settings”, use the slider to change the text size.

This is the way to go, native resolution = sharp fonts, images… ; also you can set default font sizes etc. in your email program, if it’s webmail you can use Ctrl++/Ctrl– to set the web page to your preferred scaling.

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Check the Samsung site for Windows 10 drivers. The ones included with Windows 10 are very basic. That may be sufficient for a monitor but if there are any special features in the device they will most likely only be enabled by an OEM driver.

BTW, LCD/LED monitors work best when used at the default resolution. Instead of lowering the resolution trying increasing the text size. Right click on a blank spot on the desktop, select “Display Settings”, use the slider to change the text size.

Joe

Thanks very much. I followed your advice and that seems to have fixed things.

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Jellyby,

I just installed a 27″ Samsung Dual Monitor setup and the bright new shiny monitors would not use the full screen width/height w/the windows drivers. Once I got the Samsung monitor drivers installed the screens filled all the way wozer! As always YMMV but I’d install them you can always roll them back.

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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I do not believe Monitor Drivers are drivers. They just give the manufacturers definitive description of the monitors capabilities. Should not hurt, may help.
:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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The monitor “drivers” do supply these capabilities to Windows which allows setting the display to the proper resolution where it was blocked before.

Jerry

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Your typical monitor should have an “ini” file and maybe a firmware release, maybe.
Anything else the monitor supplies on disk will depend on the capabilities of the monitor and what the manufacturer
offers in those capabilities. Your “REAL” driver will reside with the GPU you have.

Anything the manufacturer has on disk is worth taking a look at because it is supposed to be specific to your monitor, which
very rarely changes. As opposed to a “REAL” video driver.

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Your typical monitor should have an ”ini” file and maybe a firmware release, maybe.
Anything else the monitor supplies on disk will depend on the capabilities of the monitor and what the manufacturer
offers in those capabilities. Your “REAL” driver will reside with the GPU you have.

Anything the manufacturer has on disk is worth taking a look at because it is supposed to be specific to your monitor, which
very rarely changes. As opposed to a “REAL” video driver.

inf file
:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I stand corrected.

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I stand corrected.

Ah have a seat
:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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It is the color profile on a monitor. Additionally a monitor’s “driver” can install certain functions like “pivot” if the monitor has a supported function.

But every monitor has a unique color profile and every monitor should have its specific profile installed for best faithful color rendition. This holds true for laptop/tablet screens as well.

Windows OS may indeed select an optional appropriate .icc or .icm file, but often does not.

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