Please forgive the long nature of this post.
I first backed up one of my bootable Windows 10 drives with Macrium Reflect and then restored the image to a TEST DRIVE.
I have the ability in my system to power on or off multiple drives while the system box is shut off.
I updated Armoury Crate to the latest version and looked to see what drivers it recommended.
It showed:
That I already had the latest NDIS.
I had the same version of Marvell Ethernet Driver as on the Asus Website.
So I downloaded the latest Marvell Ethernet Driver from the MS Update Catalog.
I could not find the WiFi device in Device Manager. I do not use it so I just SKIPPED THIS.
Armoury Crate recommends an older version of MEI than on the Asus Website.
Armoury Crate recommends an older version of Serial IO than on website.
Armoury Crate recommends an older version of Chipset Driver than on website.
I could not find the version of Bluetooth Driver on pc. I do not use it so I just SKIPPED THIS.
Armoury Crate recommends the older version of Thunderbolt Driver that is on the Asus Website.
I could not find the version of Rapid Storage Driver on pc. I do not use it so I just SKIPPED THIS.
Armoury Crate does not show latest ITE USB Connector Client Device Driver at all.
So Armoury Crate is good for getting you started from scratch, but not as useful for updating drivers.
I tried to follow the advice about order.
Here is what I encountered:
The first driver I updated was the Management Engine Interface from the Asus Website. (Ran AsusSetup.exe)
The second driver I updated was the Chipset Driver from the Asus Website. (Ran AsusSetup.exe)
The third driver I updated was the Serial IO (GPIO and I2C) Driver from the Asus Website. It Blue Screened the two times I tried.
Error message was "Driver Power State Failure".
It did the GPIO correctly, but had to do the I2C in two of three places from Device Manager Rebooting each time.
The fourth driver I updated was the ITE USB Connector Client Device Driver.
I had to get it from the MS Update Catalog, use Device Manager to install it and then Reboot.
The fifth driver I updated was the Marvell Ethernet Driver from the MS Update Catalog.
I used Device Manager and then Rebooted.
The sixth driver I attempted to update was the Thunderbolt Driver.
Here is where it got really fun.
The driver on the Asus Website is older than the one in the MS Update Catalog, so I downloaded from the catalog.
There was no install exe or msi or cmd. None of the .exe's I tried to run did anything.
So, I tried installing from Device Manager.
This seemed to update the drivers, but when I ran the driver update checker in CCleaner, it still showed the older driver.
This was puzzling.
I ran the Thunderbolt controller from the Start menu, and it showed older info I thought.
After pondering the Universe for awhile, it occured to me that MoKiChU might have posted something that works better, and I was annoyed with myself for not having checked his update threads first before starting.
When I went to his master index of updates I saw that not only did he have a Thunderbolt driver, he also had drivers that were more up to date for:
Audio, Chipset, ME Firmware, better setups for Management Engine Interface, and Marvell Ethernet, and Serial IO, and possibly USB 4. He also packages some of the drivers together.
I cautiously did the ME Firmware update.
Fortunately it worked fine. I think it is easy to have a catastrophe with that kind of update. So I am thankful.
Next, I did his later update for Chipset.
Then I ran his update for Thunderbolt.
At first I thought that it did not work because the drivers seemed to update, but the control app was the same.
I tried using DriverStore Explorer to delete 5 instances of the older driver on the ssd.
Still had same version for control app.
Then I noticed that his description plainly said, "Driver Only."
The Asus Website download was an older driver, but the control app is included.
I think the version of the app is the same, because when I ran the Asus Website version after MoKiChU's the control app remained the same version.
Of course, it is possible that is saw the later drivers and just did nothing.
Fortunately, with the exception of the ME Firmware, all of this was done on my TEST DRIVE.
So, when I actually backup and update my regular drives, I will use MoKiChU's driver setups for all except Thunderbolt.
For Thunderbolt I will use the Asus Website Driver and Control App package and then run MoKiChU's Driver Only update.
I hope this helps the next person trying to update drivers.
Cheers.
