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I have just bought a Toshiba Satellite L850-1VO.

The part no is PSKG6E.

I have done a clean install of windows 8 x64, but now I am stuck with no drivers installed.

I have located the website for driver downloads which is here

After entering my laptop information I am presented with about 30 drivers which I am eligible to download for my laptop (the drivers span 3 pages with pagination links at the bottom).

I am not very clued up to what drivers I would need to install to get my laptop up and running efficiently as it could be, and what drivers are optional which would be downloaded if I needed to perform a specific task.

Could anyone please take a look at the website provided while entering my laptop information and tell me which drivers are essential for my laptop and should be installed.

TOSHIBA DRIVER FORM INFO

  1. Product Type: Notebook
  2. Family: Satellite
  3. Product Series: Satellite L Series
  4. Model: L850-1VO
  5. Short Model No: PSKG6E
  6. Operating System: Windows 8 x64
  7. Driver Type: All,
  8. Country: UK
  9. Language: English

I greatly appreciate anyone taking the time to help me with this, I decided to do a fresh install of windows 8 as the laptop came with a lot of pre-installed unwanted software. Installing the essential drivers for my laptop to function efficiently and effectively is the last thing I have to do.

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  • 3
    Other than the video card drivers, I'm a firm believer in starting with nothing, then installing drivers as things need it. While it won't get me the newest hottest drivers, it keeps my system pretty minimal
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    Mar 25, 2013 at 7:49
  • At the minute all I have is video cards, and Intel Chipset. My laptop is running fine and fast, but like I said I don't really know about this stuff, thanks for your reply. I don't know for example if I needed the usb drivers even though my usb ports work?
    – CarlG
    Mar 25, 2013 at 7:52
  • It's typical of laptop manufacturers to provide the drivers. Usually you can obtain drivers for specific hardware that are much newer, but they don't always work and you're forced to go to the company who made the laptop for their official drivers which usually work.
    – hookenz
    Mar 25, 2013 at 8:23
  • I have to agree with Journeyman Greek here. If it's not broke, don't fix it! My biggest headaches and issues have come from an update of some sort (Windows update/Hardware update/Software update etc). I now have everything I can turned off and only when something goes wrong do I consider an update and that update is as specific as it can be!
    – Dave
    Mar 25, 2013 at 8:35

3 Answers 3

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In my experience, I tend to find that many of the drivers are versioned (sometimes by OS, sometimes by feature, bugfix, update etc). You basically need to marry together, the latest driver from your PC/laptop vendor supporting your OS, with any "Unknown Device" or device that displays as having no driver installed in your device manager. Really simple to do!

I've always found that for best results, install everything in the following order:

  1. Fully wipe (and partition HDD if necessary) - I find that having two partitions gives me a clear separation between OS/Programs, and files, if organised correctly.

  2. Install Windows, and configure to add/remove features you do/don't need.

  3. Install Drivers: Chipset, Graphics, Network, Sound, IO, etc. Ensure you get the latest versions applicable to your machine, and don't install drivers for devices you don't have.

  4. Install Internet Security/A.V.

  5. Install Updates, Service Packs, Runtimes (.NET, VC++ Runtime, DirectX, etc).

  6. Install other major softwares such as office and other productivity/design software.

  7. Install smaller softwares, freeware, shareware etc (anything you, and your machine trust!)

  8. Install something like CCleaner (brilliant, and free), and fully clean HDD and registry

  9. Organise your files, accounts, libraries, and even image your HDD so next time you install everything, you just need to clone the HDD from the image (much quicker than manual wipe/install).

  10. You're good to go!

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  • Thank you this, was an even better answer to what I asked!
    – CarlG
    Mar 25, 2013 at 8:33
  • On step 3 now! Windows 8 does indeed install quickly,
    – CarlG
    Mar 25, 2013 at 9:21
  • Just finished now, I now feel like I have a very stable laptop and a backup disk that I can use if anything ever goes wrong, thanks again!
    – CarlG
    Mar 25, 2013 at 14:07
  • @CarlG, glad I could help! :-)
    – Matthew Layton
    Mar 25, 2013 at 16:15
  • @CarlG, Interesting that you've chosen Windows 8! I tried it for 10 mins over the weekend and absolutely hated it. Admittedly the device I was using was not a touch enabled device.
    – Matthew Layton
    Mar 25, 2013 at 16:17
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Generally speaking, if you want stable OS with best hardware performance, you should install all drivers and only absolutely required manufacturer utilities.

Drivers are needed for these devices (skip the ones your laptop doesn't have):

  • Chipset
  • Graphics
    • if you have dual NVIDIA graphics, install Intel graphics driver first and then the latest NVIDIA driver from their website
    • for dual ATI/AMD graphics, install only AMD driver from manufacturer's website - ATI doesn't provide universal dual driver; Intel driver is included
  • Sound card
  • Ethernet and Wi-Fi
  • Card reader
  • Webcam
  • Touchpad
  • Other devices like fingerprint scanner etc.

Manufacturers usually release a lot of additional tools that mostly don't enhance anything, but there are some exceptions - if you find anything ACPI-related, then it will probably be useful (like it will enable extended hotkeys, enhance power management etc., example: Asus ATK).

As @JourneymanGeek mentioned, some drivers may not be required and will consume additional memory, but I believe it's better to install these anyway - sometimes unexpected things start to without them or important/useful features are missing.

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I would do the latest of these:

BIOS Display (AMD RADEON or INTEL) Intel pro set wireless Sound driver based on your hardware

I think everything else is unneeded and extra crud they throw on there. Your system maintenance should tell you if you have any hardware conflicts (yellow exclamation points) then get those as well.

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