Troubleshooting Drivers

If Media Center is crashing completely, or especially if you are experiencing Blue-Screen system crashes, your Hardware Devices are the most likely culprit. Make sure you have up-to-date drivers. This typically means getting the drivers from the original manufacturer of your device, not from Microsoft's Windows Update (the built-in "update my driver" functionality), or from the original manufacturer of your computer. The exception to this is with some laptops, where the vendors don't always implement devices "nicely" and you must use their custom drivers (though this has been becoming less and less common). In these cases, ensure you have the most up to date (or otherwise known to be well-behaved) version available.

The most important drivers are:

Audio Devices

If it happens when you play something, and that file has audio, it could be a broken or misbehaving Audio device driver.

Some common (US/English) download locations for these are:

• Realtek: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/
• ASUS Xonar Cards: http://support.asus.com/download/options.aspx?SLanguage=en&type=1
• Creative Sound Blaster: http://support.creative.com/Products/Products.aspx?catid=1

If you have a more esoteric external DAC, then check with the manufacturer of your audio device. If you are using HDMI-out from your video card, then the drivers are typically included with the drivers for your Video Card (see the next item).

Note: Mac OSX includes the audio drivers for all built-in audio hardware, though any third-party audio devices will require a driver from the manufacturer.

Video Cards (GPUs)

Impacts all video playback and Theater View, primarily. It can also cause problems with audio-only playback, particularly if a visualizer is visible on screen. Video card driver issues are a common source of Blue Screen crashes.

Here are some more common download links for GPU vendors:

• Intel GPU Drivers: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/default.aspx
• AMD GPU Drivers: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download
• Nvidia GPU Drivers: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Even in some of these latter cases where you have a laptop that has been abandoned by the manufacturer, and has bad driver bugs, you can sometimes get it working with helpful third-party driver "mods". This is a bit sketchy but can come through in a pinch. It would probably be a good idea to ask if you think you might need to do something like this.

If you aren't sure what kind of GPU you have, you can use GPU-Z from TechPowerUp to identify it.

Note: Mac OSX includes all the required (and only available) GPU drivers, so this does not apply to OSX at all.

Platform Drivers

If you have more general performance issues, or crashes, you may also have a problem with your computer's "motherboard" drivers. These include the drivers for the various chips on your motherboard. If you have a modern CPU, you can obtain these directly from Intel or AMD:

• Intel INF Update Utility (for most modern Intel CPUs): Intel Download Center
• Some AMD Platform Drivers are available here: http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/downloads.aspx

Note: Likewise, Mac OSX includes all the required (and only available) chipset and platform drivers, so this does not apply to OSX at all.