We currently have three very different ways to connect to the Internet with our devices in our homes. Each of them with their pros and cons. One is the PLC in which the data travels the electrical wiring and can save you from laying a large Ethernet cable. The other is Wi-Fi, which is the most used right now, since it offers us greater mobility within our home. But without a doubt, the one that offers us the best use of all the bandwidth of our Internet connection is the Ethernet network cable. Here the protagonist is the Ethernet card that we must keep ready to avoid problems. In this article we are going to see how I know if I have the updated Ethernet card and know if it is due to be updated now.
Why do you need to have the updated Ethernet card?
The reasons why we are interested in keeping our Ethernet card up to date are many. One of the most important is for security reasons. Thus, if it is not updated, they could exploit security flaws that could compromise the security of our team. For this reason, it is convenient to have it updated without forgetting to have the latest operating system updates installed and to have a good antivirus.
Another good reason is that sometimes the driver updates for our network card include some performance improvements. They also help us to have a greater stability since some outdated drivers can sometimes cause random cuts. In short, we could say that having the updated Ethernet card helps make it more secure, gain performance on some occasions, and improve its stability.
It should also be noted that these types of failures that occur due to not having the latest driver are more common than they seem. For example, Windows 10, one of the most widely used operating systems today, receives two major updates a year. This causes that there are many changes that on some occasion affect our Ethernet card and end up causing some incompatibility or failure. You may be interested in how to know the details of your network card in Windows.
In the Realtek 2.5G Multigigabit network cards that some motherboards have integrated, due to a faulty driver version, they caused sporadic cuts when the download or upload bandwidth was too high, the solution was to update the available drivers to the latest version, and the problem was solved without major inconvenience.
Check if the card is up to date
We have already seen that keeping our Ethernet card updated can bring us improvements in security, stability and performance. The first point before installing a new driver is to check the version of the network driver that our Ethernet card has installed. In that aspect it can be interesting because we will know the date and version of that controller. Thus, we can see if the change has been deeper or less. The current date and version jump can be an interesting indication.
In Windows 10 we can check if the Ethernet card is updated by following these steps:
- We are going to Start Menu.
- Control Panel.
- hardware and sound.
- Devices and printers.
- Device administrator.
Here we have to look in “Network adapters” for our network card and with the right mouse button we click on it. Then we will get several options, here the one that interests us is Properties.
So to find out if I have the updated Ethernet card, click on the tab Controller.
In this case we find a relatively recent driver that is approximately one year old. Another factor that stands out is that the driver is offered by Microsoft. Surely there is no update available updated from the operating system but it may be quite likely that there is an updated driver on the website of the manufacturer of the Ethernet network card. In that case it would be Realtek and also if it were a laptop it is usually easier to search on the manufacturer’s website.
Finally, here you have explained how to update the network card if necessary.
