Windows 10: Probable incompatibility between Nvidia GTX 1050Ti Drivers & Asus Maximus VI Hero

I am having a very odd behavior on a family member's PC. SPEC: CPU - Intel Core i7 4790K @ 4.0 GHzMotherboard - Asustek Maximus VI Hero BIOS v1603RAM - Corsair Vengeance 2x8GB DDR3 2.4 GHzGPU - MSI Aero GTX 1050 TiWindows 10 FRESH INSTALLI have read the BSOD Finding and fixing them post before doing this one.Explanation:The PC needed a hardware update as the old GPU broke. I have proceeded to install a MSI Aero GTX 1050 Ti on the PC. At first I thought I was okay with just uninstalling the old drivers and installing the new GPU but this seemed to not work. I then proceeded to do a FRESH INSTAL

:)

 

ASUS Z370 ROG Maximus X Hero Motherboard - Drivers

Greetings Ten Forums / Community,

I own a ASUS Z370 ROG Maximus X Hero Motherboard and I plan to install Windows 10 64bit.

If we take a closer look at the following driver comparison list between the Intel and ASUS websites, we can see some discrepancies between the driver versions and the file size.


Windows 10 64bit Drivers

VGA Drivers:
- ASUS Website: Version: 26.20.100.7210, Date: 11/27/2019, Size: 377.37 MBytes
- Intel Website: Version: 26.20.100.7870, Date: 02/19/2020, Size: 340 MBytes

ROG MAXIMUS X HERO Driver & Tools | Motherboards | ASUS Australia
Download Intel(R) Graphics - Windows(R) 10 DCH Drivers


LAN Drivers (Intel LAN I219V):
- ASUS Website: Version: 12.18.9.7, Date: 07/08/2019, Size: 3.3 MBytes
- Intel Website: Version: 25.0 , Date: 01/23/2020, Size: 66.56 MBytes

ROG MAXIMUS X HERO Driver & Tools | Motherboards | ASUS Australia
Download Intel(R) Network Adapter Driver for Windows(R) 10


Chipset Driver (Intel Chipset INF Utility):
- ASUS Website: Version: 10.1.18019.8144, Date: 10/21/2019, Size: 5.36 MBytes
- Intel Website: Version: 10.1.18228.8176, Date: 11/28/2019, Size: 3.12 MBytes

ROG MAXIMUS X HERO Driver & Tools | Motherboards | ASUS Australia
Download Chipset INF Utility


SATA Driver (Intel Rapid Storage Technology RST):
- ASUS Website: Version: 17.5.0.1017, Date: 07/02/2019, Size: 26.88 MBytes
- Intel Website: Version: 17.8.0.1065, Date: 01/17/2020, Size: 22.52 MBytes

ROG MAXIMUS X HERO Driver & Tools | Motherboards | ASUS Australia
Download Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology (Intel(R) RST) User Interface and Driver


My confusion arises from the Intel website stating that the drivers are "Generic Intel Drivers' and in the download description notes it states that some manufacturers "customize" the generic Intel driver to meet the needs of their system design. (Examples shown in the pictures below.)





















So my questions are:
(Q1) Which drivers can be downloaded from the Intel website without the risk of losing any features / customizations for my specific motherboard ? (ASUS Z370 ROG Maximus X Hero Motherboard)

(Q2) Which drivers should be strictly downloaded from the ASUS website ?

(Q3) How could I identify any drivers that have been "customized" on the ASUS website ?


Any help would be appreciated, Thanks in advance.

 

ASUS Z370 ROG Maximus X Hero Motherboard - Drivers

Very good questions. So I went to look.

Asus offers





Latest on site





Now the numbers don't match at all but if you squint and shorten .18019 to .1

and .8144 to just .44

Then the numbers match what the Asus tool found. I know, I know I'm stretching it.

 

ASUS Z370 ROG Maximus X Hero Motherboard - Drivers

@Caledon Ken
Thanks for the information. I understand more or less.

So from what I have gathered (please correct me if I am mistaken), Windows 10 version updates have a tendency to install drivers on top of drivers that you have already installed on your system, along with changing various aspects of Windows 10 software itself that could also "break drivers. Is this a fair assumption ?

This was also one of the reasons I was asking about the LAN Driver for the ASUS Z370 ROG Maximus X Hero motherboard because in the driver description on the download page it states things such as "Support RS5 only." or "Support RS5/19H1", but it does not mention anything about support for future Windows 10 versions such as 1903/19H1, 1909/19H2, 2004/20H1 etc. (See picture below)





Is this basically ASUS not being able to guarantee proper driver functionality in future Windows 10 versions ?

Consider this hypothetical situation: If a driver provided on the ASUS website was to break on a future version of Windows 10 in 2 years time, do you think they would release a new working driver on the ASUS website ? or would it be expected for the user to buy a whole new computer ?