Freeware sound card drivers

Blue Microphones. Cirrus Logic. Cologne Chip Designs. Ego Systems Inc. Elevoc Technology Co. Focusrite Audio Engineering Ltd. Forte Media. GN Netcom. Guillemot Corporation. Hunan Goke Microelectronics.

Level One. Mark of the Unicorn. Maxim R Integrated. Pioneer DJ. Preferred Networks. Quickturn Design. Screaming Bee Inc. Silicon Image. SRS Filter. Super Micro. TerraTec Electronic GmbH. VB-Audio Software. Video Logic. Voyetra Turtle Beach.

While most of them work in almost the same way, our favorite is Driver Booster. This program will scan your computer for all the missing and outdated drivers that it can find, and then will download the right driver for you. All you have to do is click a few buttons and confirm the installations. So, remember, all drivers are free! You should be able to download nearly any driver direct from the driver's source - the manufacturer - without incurring any cost whatsoever.

However, even if you can't, the other options from above are usually very beneficial for finding free drivers. Please know that you do not need to update your drivers on a regular basis.

If you're not experiencing issues with your hardware, and you're not looking for additional features, then you don't need to update your drivers at all. For example, if your sound no longer works, it's possible the sound card driver has been corrupted or removed, in which case you can reinstall the sound card driver.

However, if your sound card has been working fine, there isn't a requirement to update it even if it could be updated to a new version. Some people are wary about updating device drivers, maybe because they've had a bad experience in the past or because they're afraid it will make their device stop working. This is another reason you shouldn't worry about updating the driver for a device that doesn't obviously need the update.

Sound Card drivers are tiny programs that enable your Sound Card hardware to communicate with your operating system software. Maintaining updated Sound Card software prevents crashes and maximizes hardware and system performance. Using outdated or corrupt Sound Card drivers can cause system errors, crashes, and cause your computer or hardware to fail. Furthermore, installing the wrong Sound Card drivers can make these problems even worse.

Recommendation: If you are inexperienced with updating Sound Card device drivers manually, we highly recommend downloading the Sound Card Driver Utility. This tool will download and update the correct Sound Card driver versions automatically, protecting you against installing the wrong Sound Card drivers.

Free driver downloads are certainly available but where do you find them? Here are the different ways you can download free drivers for your hardware, ordered in the same way you should look for them: Directly From the Hardware Manufacturer The first and best place to look for free device drivers is from the hardware manufacturer's website.