I couldn't help but wonder about this after helping a friend today fix his pc.

I generally grab fresh ones when i do a format and then every so often see if there are new ones out.

Thats the way I do my pc(s) as well.

always up2date... after a checkup on reliability reviews

As a general rule, I don't update drivers at all if the ones I'm using aren't causing problems.

for any kind of drivers, even newer versions may slow down and/or cause other problems, so i usually try to do some research for the best drivers and bioses to use based on performance and bug reports. usually they're pretty new, but sometimes 3 or 4 released behind the newest ones. for example, ati's newest 6.3 drivers are great, but sometimes i had to use slightly older versions because of problems caused in newer ones.

My chipset drivers are always up to date, graphics drivers usually close but I research changes/improvements first, sound card drivers are up to date...most other stuff is also up to date. The only bit of advice I'll offer is to stay FAR away from any drivers MS offers on their update pages unless you can't find the real drivers anywhere.

That's exactly why I had problems with my built-in ethernet when I did my last install.

My drivers are all up to date except for nForce IDE/SATA and RAID controller drivers. They basically screw up the system.