Why doesn't anything work?

Gremlins :D OR my other theory is really small zombies. But anyway...

My recent technology mishap was this... I'm in the middle of a Call of Duty game in which my score is 41 kill and 6 deaths after 11 minutes (aka I'm doing kick ass). So I bring up the console and type what I thought was 'record', I get an error... hmm it seems that my c key stopped working. On further investigation it turns out my z, x, and c key stopped working for no reason. They were working thirty seconds early but now they stopped.

After taking the keyboard apart, I can't find any problems. It also wont work in any of my mother computers. So I take out an extra keyboard, plug it in and I'm on my way. I get into windows, but now theirs a new error. The caps lock key is stuck on. It wont turn off. I try it in another computer, still stuck. I take the keyboard apart and once again can't find a problem.

So now i'm down to my last keyboard. Its a small, mini travel kind of keyboard (some thing like 88 keys, can type with one hand). This keyboard has the 'Fn' key to double other keys (such as the letter 'j' can also be used as the number 1). Well its stuck to. I can't use half the keyboard because numbers are coming up instead of letters. I open this keyboard up, and I'm not sure what I did but I got it working.

So now I'm down to this little piece of junk travel keyboard.. All I wanted to do was play a couple rounds of Call of Duty :(

christ you guys are unlucky. Remind me not to ever travel by boat with you as I don't want the boat to hit an iceberg

recently, also known as today, my laptop wont boot unless i boot with all extensions turned off, which requires booting whilst holding down the 'shift' key. and amazingly, ive forgotten both times i booted up today. freakin macs. 'yea, these are user friendly. theres no tinkering required. just hit power and go.' yeah, right.

then theres my iPod. you can only read half of the screen (the left half) because i fell onto it while skating. so to see anything you have to guess the end of the word. and you have no idea what the battery life is, because the battery metre is on the dead half.

other than that, my technology has been behaving well lately.

If i plug my keyboard in via the USB on board my mobo, the pc freezes while shutting down :( if i plug it into the USB 2 expansion card, it works fine, if i plug it into the onboard PS2 it works fine :S

The only reason it goes into USB is cos otherwise the control software has interesting affects, like bringing media player or winamp to the front when i press pause, if it is USb'd it dosent. :( i will cope....

<shameless mis-quoting for the sakes of comedy>

Originally Posted by Chris Caines
If I'm honest I use it mainly for wireless browsing and playing Bejeweled in the toilet (whilst I wait for them to pull their fingers out about the availability of the Blackberry Connect software)

pull their fingers out of where..... i had the most bizarre mental image.....

Originally Posted by Chris Caines
As far as I'm concerned if it fits in the hole then it ought to work.

im slightly concerned about which holes your trying to fit things into.....

</shameless mis-quoting for the sakes of quality>

i run linux, very happily..... but, if i load XP pro in a virtual machine, it a) turns my pcm volume down to 0 when windows starts, and b) turns off the key-repeat on my keyboard (the thing that makes hhhhhhhhhhhhh if you hold down h, i just get h no matter how long i hold down)

i think a lot of things can be attributed to "functions over functionality", i.e. "lets make usb drivers for a million devices", rather than "lets make usb drivers for a hundred devices that work perfectly every time". coupled with the insane rush to push technology into the market place (when was the last time you ever heard a company say "no, lets not sell this new product that will gross us a squillion dollars until we fix this niggling bug") and you get the net effect of things that *almost* work just fine.

as for the usb thing.... it might just be me, but has anyone noticed that XP seems to install a driver for each socket you plug the device into? i have two usb ports on the front of my pc, if i plug my usb-disk into port1, windows installs the driver, and if i then plug it into port2 windows goes through the driver installer thingummy *again*. surely it would just need one driver for one device?

as for the hardware, i can sort of understand. i tend to buy not-top-end gear thats been tried and tested, install it, set it up and it works just fine if i leave it to do its job (i.e. i dont overclock or anything). aside from taking my machine down every few months to clean the accumulated gunk out of its fans (i smoke like a chimney around my pc, and its very dusty here), it just runs and runs. but i do, occasionally, get the odd peice of hardware, i have a memory stick that will work on one motherboard here, but no others, i have an old pci gfx card that will work on 5 mobo's, but not the sixth (all six are exactly the same brand/model etc). just "odd little quirks" of the hardware that seem to defy any logic. my chair is going the same way too, but thats just through sheer use, it has two worn patches on it, right through to the foam, where my thighs and bum go (im skinny and have a bony bum), but considering the amount of use it gets, im well happy its lasted this long.

"As far as I'm concerned if it fits in the hole then it ought to work. "

Keep telling my girlfriend that. She just wont listen.

I see you said don't get me started about your bluetooth adapter, well I know your pain there...such a pain to get it working right (and all I ever do is use it to transfer files, so god help me if I ever wanted to start syncing my phone to anything via bluetooth).

As for your NAS box, surprised about the keyboard error thingy...isn't there an option in the BIOS for the halt on errors which you can set to 'no errors' or something. I can't say I've seen many motherboards which don't have an option for this...

Generally I just about manage to get things working as I wan't most of the time, I seem to have really bad luck with getting sent the wrong item or something thats dead on arrival though which is just as frustrating - it seems online companies like to test my patence by doing things like sending me the wrong version of a motherboard (Dabs did it twice), then last week ebuyer sent a replacement motherboard to Wales last week rather than my home in Wolverhampton (for reasons yet to be explained, then theres OcUK sending me an opened/used and broken A8N-SLI Premium yesterday! :(

my scope says "Error 41" on startup every time, but it means nothing to anyone, not even HP who make the thing and i spen £10 on a new battery for it (thinking it would fix the prob) and now all it does is remember the time...
I have a LCD screen on my pc which the left hand side is 10 pixels higher than the right hand side..

If i put my hand behind my pc for anything, the power lead disconnects just enough for my pc to turn off, however hard it is plugged in and the DVI plug for monito 1 allways falls out...

the fan in the sides of all the pcs here are noisy...

i have loads of software probs, like winamp crashes if you load a radio station while listing to another song, and if i unplu my USB mouse (plugged into a US -> PS2 adaptor) (KVM switch) it wont work again unless i unplug the adaptor...

actually i am doing pretty well nowadays...

Damn gizmos, reel you in with all there shiney goodness then turn there nose up at you cos they cant be arsed to work "ive got more important things to do" they say.... pah! :?

Oh, and this forever chasing the broken part when something is almost working perfectly, you fix the brocken/dodgey item and something else decides its had enough :'(

all my stuff just works :D

now i am waiting for something to break

Originally Posted by RTT
all my stuff just works :D

Me too, yay! :D

Nothing works for me either. My water-cooling pump all of a sudden decided not to start this past weekend. A reboot of the PC got it going again. But it stopped again the other day. It's hit or miss, needless to say I'm scrapping my water-cooling system and going back to air cooling. Ordered $80 worth of air cooling equipment to replace my $300+ water-cooling stuff.

Now the mouse in my new, expensive Logitech Dinovo Media set does not work. It worked all of about one day. Now when I plug the USB cable in the system just doesn't see it. This is on three separate computers. The keyboard works fine, I'm typing on it now but I had to use another mouse with it. Hopefully Logitech will get me a replacement. They've done so in the past.

Originally Posted by bigal
and the DVI plug for monito 1 allways falls out...

thats why there are screws on the plug....

tut, tbh you guys are whingers! there is a solution to every problem, its just finding it and having the patience to do so usually ...

as for the article - just buy some decent equipment that works ...sounds as though everything you own is old and worn :p

Originally Posted by RTT
all my stuff just works :D

All my stuff works...... just! :D

Here's a new one to me....

Got a laptop from one of my users that runs XP and just before the login window appears the screen goes black. It's still on as you can see the lighting along the edges but nothing on screen. If you connect an external monitor you get the video with the login screen. However if you run with the unit plugged in instead of on battery the screen comes up just fine. For some reason on battery it thinks it should switch to external video even with no monitor connected and no key combination will get it back to the built in screen.

Originally Posted by Chris
My PDA hangs, a lot. I won't go into the particular brand suffice to say I've had, oh... two, or three of them in my time. If I'm honest I use it mainly for wireless browsing and playing Bejeweled in the toilet (whilst I wait for them to pull their fingers out about the availability of the Blackberry Connect software)...

Whoops!

This thread is now about the most random and/or disastrous failure without reason that you've experienced. I've had two Hydor pumps not just fail, but fail for IDENTICAL reasons and after the EXACT same amount of time each (9 months). I contacted the company and they said they'd send a replacement part; that was months ago.

Originally Posted by RTT
all my stuff just works :D

++

except for my joystick which wont work unless plugged into a mobo usb port, not a big deal i need the front ports for other stuff
and the slightly iffy raid controller which works fine now :p

I cant surf the net while listening to music. Dont know why?

My bluetooth keyboard will fail to connect once every few days usually mid clan game.

The microphone will occasionally just start hissing as loud as it can usually while on a critical game or conversation, and the best one:

While on a very important call to the guy who decides if i stay at uni, my mobile decides to randomly reboot. Seriously i have never had such a worse for a reboot

Haha... :) My stuff just works, usually. Except at the office, where it needs to work, and therefore doesn't. And always at the least beneficial time...like the copier breaking when I need to process 3 tax returns.

a really good and entertaining read! but yea, i live in constant fear of something about to go wrong. its too random.

i have a maxtor drive which gives me worries sometimes. if my fans change speed a little i notice the noise and i get all edgy.

not that anything has happened...but thats the point. its random. i might wake up tomorrow and it simply wont boot, then i have a whole week finding out the problem.

I was thinking about writing a column along the same lines... not had a good month with hardware this month - can't wait for July to end...

Haha...why, what blew up on your end, biggles?

things just not working as they should do... long story :(

ive had a few hdds completely corrupt randomly after turning off my computer and ive had to buy new ones so i can load XP again and get my mechine to work.
my front usb ports cannot be connected to my mobo otherwise my computer will not boot.
oh and the best of all...
the caps on my motherboard decide to start leaking when i dont have enough money to buy a new motherboard (damn epox and thier year of bad caps) so im stuck with out a pc for my 3rd week.

oh and i also have a chronic issue with windows(2k) deciding it doesnt want its system files anymore and automatically deleting them so i go from 200+ files down to 20 or so and i cant turn my computer off till i find someother hd to run it on and remove everything and reinstall. but i think everyone has had windows probs like that