What motherboard do you have? EVERY motherboard is built around a chipset. A chipset consists in mosts cases of 2 chips: a north- and a southbridge. (exception: the latest nVidia chipsets) In short: the northbridge maintains the connection with the CPU and the memory, while the southbridge maintains the connectivity with other devices: PCI(E) cards, USB, FireWire, PATA+SATA, etc. So basically chipset drivers are needed to use all the capabilities of your specific chipset. A chipset connects all other hardware. I know this explanation is not at all complete, but it's a small overview. I hope this helps