Why Doesn't PC stuff ever just work?

[CyberDyneSystems]

Sorry.. whine mode on :roll:

I have a Video card installed in my AMD/ WinXP system that once did video capture.. but now no matter what I try and update it will no longer work.

So.. i decide rather than risk my now "PERFECT" and very complex display settings with further mucking about.. I'll just grab one of those little external USB "Plug and Play" boxes.

So I check Neweeg.. and they range from about $35.00 up to god knows...

I decide to gert one that has the res and frame rate and file types I';m looking for.. and a name I recognice (Plextor) and it has 5 star rating.
For this I spend a little above averadge at $70.00

It arrived today.
Plug an play? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

First it's one of those USB devices that says install the drivers before plugging in.. this I'm used to.. no sweat. But when I try to install it insists that XP SP1 needs to be installed first.

Now.. I am a sysadmin in my spare time.. I know the ins outs of these things.. but I hate spending my own personal time on my own PCs to futz with this sort of thing.

I also know that the wonderfull world of MS products requires a deleicate balance.. a tightrope act if you will. And I know that when that balance is acheived.. on a system as complex as my home system is.. that one should leave well enough alone!!!!!!!!

So to be forced into a major update that I have clearly avaoided and NOT needed all these years for a device that makes no claim on the sys requirements for any SP to be installed has me mad and nervous.

Not to worry.. the easy way is to unplug one of the mirrored RAID drives.. if the whole thing goes south.. I reinstall and use the original install.

So on I go.

Well.. 32 system restarts later I am up and running.. (this on a machine where a system restart takes a looooong time.. RAID controller bios (whcih stops every time requiring manual boot instructions as half the mirror is missing) SCSI controller bios.. another minute at least.. then of course I;m on a network so when XP finally starts loading it has to do it's explore the whole frigging netwrok before starting thing)

Fianlly up and riunning new SP1a,.. (I've seen SP2 and Have NO interest!!!!) Updated this and that, Direct X etc...

Reinstall drivers for USB2 Video capture thingy.. and .. whooops.. Hardware Wizard says

"..No dirvers for the device can be found" :evil: :x

Nor will it install them when directed to the CD... etc...

4 hours later no matter what the thing will NOT install.

RMA to Newegg.. = 15% restocking fee... and 4 hours of my time lost .

Fortunately.. at least the "delicate balance" that is my Home system seems to have handled SP1a in stride... (and new drivers and new DX etc.. etc..)

This is plug and play.

[Curos]

Yay for plug and play! I've had to reformat my computer twice in the last 6 months, and I've run into many problems like yours. I wish it would all just work right, for once. It would make people happy :?

[Moppie]

If it "just worked" it would be easy, and you wouldn't have a job!

I know a few sys admins who refused to install XP on thier networks, out of fear it would make the computers to easy to use, and run them out of a job (this was when it was first released, most have since changed thier minds).


Prehaps you should bill the 4hrs you wasted to your employer as "training" :D


And I personaly hate Video cards!
Ever since my first 386 Iv always had trouble with them.
My current one required a driver update before battlefield 1942 would run properly. Unforunatly the latest driver would not work, and there about 10 releases between it and the one I was running.
In the end the only one that would work was one released 1 month after the one I had installed!

[iwatkins]

I have no problems with computers, everything always works for me first time, every time. Maybe computers don't like you CDS ;) :D

Ian

[Scottes]

Yeah, I don't get it. Computers just work for me. My wife gets mad because all I have to do is look over her shoulder and the problem goes away. I've been known to fix computers with operating systems I've never even *scene* before.

True story: 3rd day at a new job, they're running some VMS system on some type of VAX. The two-week old RAID system hiccups and chokes, and suddenly 400 people around the country are twiddling their thumbs. Three VMS guys are trying to fix it with no luck, so they call the service company to get a guy in. But he won't be there for 4 hours. So the guys start poking around, and I saw a setting that looked odd. I convince them to change it, they reboot, and everything's working again. We call the service company, tell them about the setting, and the tech was surprised that it hadn't crashed sooner.

[Canuck]

And you wonder why I hate windows as much as I do. I many times have asked, why the heck can't it all play nice and be flexible. This world would be a much better place if windows was a much more flexible OS and it wasn't so messed up. Why can't windows have the same stability as Linux or Mac? I have my own ideas there. :twisted:

[CyberDyneSystems]

Well.. it's not a trend with me.. thankfully.

Usually I get off pretty easy. I've not had to send a peivce of hardware back in years.. and I buy LOTs of PC hardware...

What makes it seem Ironic to me though is that I do know this stuff.. and an takle some pretty complex set ups. I built the PCs and installed and manage the network and all admin jobs at work single handed.. and it all runs itself 24/7 with very few hiccups.

I don't know that the hardware wasn't defective in this case.. but looked and acted more like no matter how many of these units I try .. it would just never install the driver.

So rather than spend the time replacing it.. I returned it and will try another solution FOUND AT A LOCAL STORE for easier return with no restocking fee....

Ahh well..

[robertwgross]

(showing extreme age here)

I remember using old DOS in the early 1980's, and then Windows 1 (which was a total piece of junk). Windows 2 wasn't much better. Then Windows 3.0 came out and I was one of the first registered users. There was a minor problem of it corrupting the hard disk when some types of disk partitioning software was used. I fought through that twice until I informed MS of the bug. The rest is history. I think 3.1 came soon after that.

By comparison, today's problems are nothing.

---Bob Gross---

[CyberDyneSystems]

I started on DOS and Widows 2.. but I didn't actually use Windows untill 3.1... ( I waited for Bob to fix it 8) )

I have to admit.. though DOS was more difficult to master.. I at elast found it to be more of an "exact science"

IE if the set up worked on one PC with identical hardware then it would perform the exact same way on another..

This does not seem to be true since Win95.. where now we seem to need to appease the Windows Gods as well to have a chance of success.

[robertwgross]

I started on DOS and Widows 2.. but I didn't actually use Windows untill 3.1... ( I waited for Bob to fix it 8) )


Oh, you were the one!

I didn't fix it. I was the one who identified the problem symptoms and the culprit. Some geek in Redmond was probably the one who fixed it.

I think back in those days, anybody shooting a digital camera had to process his image files in Assembler.

---Bob Gross---

[chris.bailey]

As I sat swearing at our home PC as the DVD burner suddenly failed to be recognised by Windows my wife remarked "you must be getting old, what you now see as a problem, you used to see as a challenge" :lol: No comment :!:

[Jon]

Yeah, I don't get it. Computers just work for me. My wife gets mad because all I have to do is look over her shoulder and the problem goes away. I've been known to fix computers with operating systems I've never even *scene* before.

True story: 3rd day at a new job, they're running some VMS system on some type of VAX. The two-week old RAID system hiccups and chokes, and suddenly 400 people around the country are twiddling their thumbs. Three VMS guys are trying to fix it with no luck, so they call the service company to get a guy in. But he won't be there for 4 hours. So the guys start poking around, and I saw a setting that looked odd. I convince them to change it, they reboot, and everything's working again. We call the service company, tell them about the setting, and the tech was surprised that it hadn't crashed sooner.

When my wife was doing user support at EDS, she visited someone (her boss, actually) about their problem, which immediately went away when she walked in the room. They wanted to know what happened. Her reply? "It knows Mommy's here." For some reason she doesn't appreciate the same thing happening to her when I wave the magic SysAdmin wand over her home computer.

[Scottes]

As I sat swearing at our home PC as the DVD burner suddenly failed to be recognised by Windows my wife remarked "you must be getting old, what you now see as a problem, you used to see as a challenge" :lol: No comment :!:

ROFLMAO!! Oh, ain't that the truth! After so many years I just want it to work. Besides, I've found other things that are challenging now. PCs should just work.

[CyberDyneSystems]

As I sat swearing at our home PC as the DVD burner suddenly failed to be recognised by Windows my wife remarked "you must be getting old, what you now see as a problem, you used to see as a challenge" :lol: No comment :!:

ROFLMAO!! Oh, ain't that the truth! After so many years I just want it to work. Besides, I've found other things that are challenging now. PCs should just work.

Oh soooo ditto!!!!!!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

This was exactly my feeling... after configuring the network and network drives for backups of all workstations to the server.. after the DOS days of multiboot setups with DOs, win3.1, and trying out that "newfangled" Win95 obscurity... partitions, fdisk, drive image,. manual registry edits to tell Win95 to do what I want it to do since there were no settings available... booting from a NICcards e-prom.... days trouble shooting hardware failures, days recovering trashed hard drive files...

I really don't need any challenges anymore.. especially when all I want to do is play with a Video capture device and transfer some VHS stuff to DVD :(

[vfilby]

I hear ya guys! I have been working on these things too long. Now I want nothing to do with the inside of a pc, it never works. When I was helping build servers for the Board of Ed, we had constant problems. When I was working for the University, it was crazy.

You gotta love it. All the excitement, money spent on some new cool thing and time to put it all together; you press the power button and get nothing but the beep codes.

So many electrial connections and just one bad one means you gotta reseat all the cards. I don't think I have ever built a computer from scratch that worked on the first try.

[Jon]

Jeez, you guys are getting OLD. I've been playing with these guys at work and at home since CP/M and it's still fun. My wife's after me to retire, but I point out that then I'll have to buy all my toys, not just the really cutting-edge ones. I'll admit, I spend more time figuring out other people's problems than my own.

[iwatkins]

Still got a VAX under my desk running VMS. Still runs fine and the best bit is that it keeps my feet warm. :)

This is my latest toy below, but it doesn't sit under my desk ;)

Cheers

Ian

http://www.asrv84.dsl.pipex.com/Stuff/nec.jpg

[Scottes]

Jeez, you guys are getting OLD. I've been playing with these guys at work and at home since CP/M and it's still fun.

Oh, there are still some things I consider fun with computers. But not PC hardware or Windows anything. I'm *so* glad I taught my wife how to fix that stuff.

[chris.bailey]

Still got a VAX under my desk running VMS. Still runs fine and the best bit is that it keeps my feet warm. :)

This is my latest toy below, but it doesn't sit under my desk ;)

Cheers

Ian



I bet Photoshop screams on one of those babies :lol:

[iwatkins]

I bet Photoshop screams on one of those babies :lol:

I asked Adobe for a port of PS CS to the SX-6 but for some reason they reckon there isn't enough demand. :lol:

<geek joke>
Anyway, the installation is so fast, it'll run an infinite loop in about a second. :D
</geek joke>

Cheers

Ian

[spelchek]

'Plug and Play'... HA.. Plug and PRAY! more like it! :)


oh, PS... get a mac! ;)

[vcutag]

Yeah, I don't get it. Computers just work for me. My wife gets mad because all I have to do is look over her shoulder and the problem goes away. I've been known to fix computers with operating systems I've never even *scene* before.

I have the same problem, but I can't complain, it ended up getting me a job with our School of Mass Comm running the Mac lab. It helps that OS X is idiot proof. 8)

[KO_300D]

First thought when I saw topic title "Why Doesn't PC stuff ever just work?"

Answer : People invented them.


Second thought when reading your post CDS,
You're using XP??

Don't know how good it is these days with the second service pack release, but after a fairly short trial period of having XP installed on my pc I decided it just *had* to go. Back to Win2k I went and I've never looked back. XP unfortunately just caused too many problems for me that it really shouldn't have done considering it's a newer edition of Windows

[vfilby]

First thought when I saw topic title "Why Doesn't PC stuff ever just work?"

Answer : People invented them.


Second thought when reading your post CDS,
You're using XP??

Don't know how good it is these days with the second service pack release, but after a fairly short trial period of having XP installed on my pc I decided it just *had* to go. Back to Win2k I went and I've never looked back. XP unfortunately just caused too many problems for me that it really shouldn't have done considering it's a newer edition of Windows

I think that winXp is one of their best IMHO. However, if I had cash I would likely have all mac.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Tat particular machine is stable as a rock.. so in this case XP is not so bad.. but I have another XP machine that crashes every time I try to use a browser... every time.

Indeed,.. I know of many that have "upgraded" back to Win2K...

But in this case I don't think Win2K would be of any help. In fact I'm sure of it. The One place where XP beats Win2K hands down is hardware and driver compatibility.