Well gang, let's face it... there are a helluva lot of parts with an infinite number of drivers. Finding a specific driver can lead to ripping your hair out by the handfull and talking in tongues to the machine in question.

BEST PLACES TO FIND DRIVERS:

SOFTWARE:

Well, obviously, there are CDs, floppy disks, and other media with the drivers already ON THEM that came with the product. Still, more and more companies are including their entire line of products on their driver discs, so you'll want to take a good look at the box, or read the tag number off the part in question.

ALSO: A lot of video cards have obsolete drivers by the time it gets in your hot little hands. A lot can happen between the time the manufacturer shipped it to the reseller, and the reseller sold it to you. Which brings us to...

WEBSITES:

Hitting the web-site for drivers is almost preferable. You get the latest drivers without having to remember where in the hell you put the recovery/driver discs. Working PC repair, I'd walk into a company that would have software on shelves, in drawers, in filing cabinets and in the machine itself, and they'd search from here to eternity for the damn disc. So, it was usually easier to use the internet for about 10 minutes and just download the needed driver. Also, from a web-site, you can get a list of known issues with the driver in question...

WINDOWS CD:

Windows comes with an amazing amount of drivers it doesn't clutter up your system with. However, a lot of those drivers can be obsolete.

WINDOWS UPDATES:

In Microsoft Internet Explorer, if you hit "Tools", "Windows Update", they will sometimes suggest new drivers for your hardware. Still, I've found that sometimes the drivers can cause issues, so download them only if you need 'em!

WINDOWS DIRECTORY:

If you bought a pre-fab, a lot of manufacturers will dump all the drivers into a file called "Options" under the Windows directory.Usually, they'll drop the drivers in the options folder under "Cabs", "Drivers". Still, this is most common in Windows 9x.

I did a little freelance work this morning, and I pulled a GF2 and reinstalled a TNT Riva 64 (the newer card was causing issues with older, DOS-based software). Because that card had come standard with the system, I was able to just click into the Options/cabs/drivers file and pull the exact driver I needed without having to hunt for any of the above. Took ten minutes for the whole operation. Nice and neat.


DRIVER WEB-SITES:

Okay, so sometimes you need to get a hard-to-find driver from a company that may have gone under during the chaotic last coupla years.

Best web-site I've encountered so far was DriverGuide.com

Also, there is: Windrivers.com

There are several others, but usually I've been able to find what I need from the first site.

For Linux, try
Sourceforge

Good luck, and good building!

Hells yeah, DriverGuide.com is the tippie ti of the tippie tay (as Pootie Tang would say)...

I found that place about a year ago, and you can find almost any driver you need there. I'm talking old @ss obscure drivers.