So you've had your Nvidia Optimus-powered laptop for a few months (or a year and half) now and you've seen the advantages in battery power when in Windows 7, and suffered the travails of being a Linux user without Nvidia drivers.
You run a Windows Update like a good Windows 7 user and see that Windows Update indicates both an Intel HD Graphics Adapter and nVidia Graphics Adapter driver. Should you install both? You visit Nvidia's support page and there's a huge driver package (around 220MB) for your laptop.
Which driver should you install?
The First Question
The first question you should be asking is if you need to update your Nvidia Optimus driver. I don't use my Lenovo Ideapad Z360 for gaming and it handles high-definition videos fine as well as casual work on Corel Painter and Corel Paint Shop Pro. Moreover, I'm normally on my openSUSE partition via dual-boot, which doesn't require any driver update.
However, if you've recently reinstalled your operating system (a clean install) or suffered a major breakdown due to a game you installed (commercial or pirated), it's best to install an updated Nvidia graphics driver for obvious reasons.
Windows Update
If you've been running Windows Update at all, you've probably learned to select only the essential updates and judiciously installed optional ones. The Nvidia drivers for the 310M Optimus fall under optional updates. The tricky question is that under optional updates is also an Intel HD Graphics driver update. Since the Nvidia Optimus feature switches back and forth between the Nvidia and Intel chipset, should you install one or both?
Nvidia's Driver Support Site
To their credit, Nvidia attempts to make downloading the correct drivers easy and if you know your setup well, you can browse for it manually without having to download the Java applet that detects your GPU.
Nvidia also helpfully tells you that the current driver their offering is also available via Windows Update.
Your gamer and hardcore PC friends, on the other hand, tell you not to trust Windows Update and insist you download the drivers directly from Nvidia.
Understanding the Provided Drivers
Let's deal with Windows Update first. Clicking on the Optional Updates will display an Intel HD Graphics adapter and Nvidia graphics adapter.
If you install just the Intel HD Graphics adapter, Intel's latest drivers will "override" your Optimus feature. Windows 7 will default to just using Intel HD, rendering your 1GB discrete GPU inert. In fact, the Nvidia Control Panel that appears in your system tray and allows you to control Optimus and the 310M GPU settings will no longer be displayed and running it manually will trigger a message indicating there is currently no Nvidia Graphics display available.
If you install both the Intel HD Graphics adapter and the Nvidia graphics adapter, Intel will still win out and you'll find yourself having to reinstall the Nvidia Control Panel or launching it manually.
If you install the Nvidia graphics adapter, you'll be running an updated Nvidia driver approved by Microsoft. Now, here's where it gets slightly confusing. Should you install the drivers directly from Nvidia or from Windows Update? In my case, I installed the October 2012 drivers for the Nvidia 310M from Microsoft Windows Update because the driver version was more updated than the R304 Geforce driver recommended by the Nvidia website. Moreover, the installation package from Windows Update was smaller and took less than 4 minutes to download and install compared to Nvidia's recommended 220MB download. After rebooting, everything in Windows worked as normal with the Nvidia Control Panel in the System Tray and Optimus doing its thing.
Windows update actually provided a slightly more updated version compared to the Nvidia site, but Nvidia's driver was probably prepped for Windows 8.
Things to try
If you have the time for it, install the Intel HD driver using Windows Update to update the Intel drivers (you still use them when Optimus switches to the Intel GPU). After rebooting, you can then install Nvidia's latest support drivers. The worst that can happen is that Windows will not be able to load a visible desktop. In that case, switch to Safe Mode and roll back or uninstall the Nvidia drivers.
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