Are Intel® Management Engine Interface & Intel® INF Drivers Still Needed??

lettuce

lettuce

lettuce

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As title really, in 2017 with Windows 10 do we still need to download and install these drivers after a fresh install?
 
To get the most out of the mobo components, you want the latest chipset drivers from the chipset maker. Often the Windows database of drivers will be outdated anyway.

The key ones are:

IME
RST (Rapid Storage)
And of course the INF

Windows will have those built in anyway, but as above, they will likely be a version or two out of date. Just download the latest, install and once everything is working, just leave as is.
 
The thing is the drivers for my mobo (| GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5H) hasn't been updated on Gigabytes website for over 2 years, so would i be better going to Intel's website and downloading the latest version from there?
 
The latest version of the Intel networking stuff BTW can cause high DPC latency spikes - I can't remember off the top of my head which components cause it.
 
Chipset is made by Intel, so yes I'd go that route. Intel installer will stop if there is any issue anyway.

But if there's nothing that isn't working, then perhaps just leaving it as is is a sound solution also.
 
I still installed RST as that was not automatic, and changes the AHCI driver from Microsoft's default to Intel's which gave me better SSD speeds... although I have no idea if that still applies with W10.
 
mrk;30477432 said:
To get the most out of the mobo components, you want the latest chipset drivers from the chipset maker. Often the Windows database of drivers will be outdated anyway.

The key ones are:

IME
RST (Rapid Storage)
And of course the INF

Windows will have those built in anyway, but as above, they will likely be a version or two out of date. Just download the latest, install and once everything is working, just leave as is.
Click to expand...

Depending on the version of Win10 you are running, this isn't strictly true. The drivers for Win10 in WU are dropped in, digitally signed, by the vendors themselves and are often pretty up to date if not the latest.

Sadly, it's part of the reason aggressive updates of Win10 can break things (like NetNat and other network stack stuff). :)
 
lettuce;30485120 said:
The Program is 12GB!!???, thats massive for such a program surely??
Click to expand...

The program itself is tiny, the bulk of the 12GB is the driver files for virtually every chipset and hardware device you can think of. It really is a brilliant piece of software.
 
lettuce;30485120 said:
The Program is 12GB!!???, thats massive for such a program surely??
Click to expand...

As Mr Plow said, the program is a few hundred KB, the driver packs are the bulk of the size. It downloads these via a torrent client so you've got almost every new driver under the sun at your disposal.
 
As someone mentioned earlier if the manufacturer stops updating drivers then it will get to a point that the only point in updating to a newer version is for performance or instability reasons.

I have seen too many a machine under windows 10 crap out as the hardware becomes older. WIndows update make it worse as often after the patch tuesday or whatever the stealth download period is troubles seem to surface.
 
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