Posts filed under 'Device Drivers'
Unless you’ve got Windows Vista running and you’re using products whose companies are neck-deep in relations with Microsoft, chances are that finding updated drivers are going to be tough, leaving your hardware outdated and possibly slower or more vulnerable than they should be. Fortunately, with so many devices out there, some companies have taken the time to archive, organize, and create a simple scanning program to make sure that hardware is kept up to date.
There are already a few sites out there, but DriverAgent.com is probably the easiest and most user-friendly one out there. After a quick 416kb download and an almost as quick scan of your computer’s hardware, the software compares the drivers you currently have with the over 1.2 million updates available, making sure that you have the most recent update possible.
Just doing a search found six out of date drivers on my computer, which was five more than what Vista’s Windows Update caught when performing the same search. The caveat comes when you try to download said drivers; a yearly subscription fee of $29.95. While the service is great and reliable, it’s tough to justify the cost when there are slightly more inconvenient ways to get the updates to your drivers. The company also throws in a few extra programs into the package, but how often one would need to use any of them is beyond anyone’s guess.
Until then, stick with the old fashioned way and find each driver manually. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on any developments on driver update programs we find that’ll be worth your time.
January 16th, 2009
Problems with USB devices are frequently caused by power problems. Unplugging a USB device may result in another USB device not working, or Windows returning from hibernation causes USB devices to be ‘unknown’. Disabling power management on USB Root Hubs can help.
Continue Reading January 10th, 2009
USB devices are often causing problems with Windows PC users. Most of these problems can be solved by reinstalling the software or drivers for the USB device. But in some cases the cause of the problem is not that clear. If you do not know where to look, make sure you check the USB power usage, as this can also be a problem.
Continue Reading January 9th, 2009
The Bios is used to enable and disable onboard hardware devices, configure your system, and to tune your system’s performance. But if things go wrong, incorrect Bios settings can also be a cause for errors. Loading the default Bios settings or resetting the Bios can help in those cases.
Continue Reading November 30th, 2008
If Windows encounters a STOP error and shows the blue screen of death, by default an automatic reboot will take place to recover from the error. If you want to analyze the STOP error, you need to stop Windows from rebooting.
Continue Reading June 14th, 2008
It’s been almost half a year since Vista raided PCs all over the world. By now, many would already think or expect to see Microsoft’s new operating system’s interface to be flashed on desktops and laptops in most establishments, especially those which can afford a mass migration to XP’s successor.
Surprisingly though, it is the small consumers who embraced Vista with open and welcoming arms, while all the new OS got from big businesses were cold shoulders and suspicious eyes. So why are companies reluctant to give Microsoft a break?
Same Old Fears
It’s quite hard to imagine that with the advent of efficient device driver finders, many are still playing the incompatibility issue to the hilt in justifying the delay of their migration. Many consumers are happy with their Vista experience, with quite a sizeable number of them claiming that the incompatibility fear that sprouted during the first few weeks of Vista’s release as just an exaggeration.
But are corporations really just digging up autopsied and cleared corpses just to scare themselves from trying the new wave in PC operation?
Not Similarly Situated
Experts admit that the worries expressed by big businesses are not entirely unfounded. Though individual Vista customers are dispelling incompatibility fears, analysts believe that such satisfaction might not immediately be experienced by large customers. For one thing, companies have hundreds or thousands of computers. The applications that they use are definitely more complex and numerous. Hence, the chances of encountering incompatibility problems are equally huge. Such a problem might seem to be just a minor headache for individual consumers. However, such a dilemma is enough to scare the wits out of any IT manager and cripple the business to a standstill.
At Home
Every successful businessman would tell you that the secret to success is to stick to formulas or products that are already tried and tested. It is not surprising then to see that many businesses are still squeezing the mileage out of their existing operating systems. It took years for IT managers to perfect the utilization and harmonization of XP into their corporate network. Such an investment would definitely be put to waste if they’ll hastily migrate to the new OS. Indeed, such a move would seem to be ill-advised and risky.
Waiting for SP1
Another reason why large companies are temporarily shelving their migration plans is due to the delay in the release of Vista’s first service pack. SP1 is expected to contain corrections to dozens of Vista errors, as well as drivers which would ensure that the OS would work smoothly with existing hardware and software. The collection of patches and other helpful applications for Vista is slated to be released by early next year. Many are expecting that SP1 would provide the answer to many of Vista’s current woes.
Its Own Doing
The continued support of Microsoft to Vista’s predecessor also discourages businesses to embrace the new product and dispose of the old one which they spent millions of dollars in. Indeed, as every company would want to make the most out of their investments, it is not surprising to see why they are holding on to their old OS as if it’s still just a year old.
While big businesses posed many reasonable justifications to their refusal to migrate, time will come when installing Vista would already become a necessity. Once Microsoft cuts the lifeline out of XP, it could already breathe life to the new OS more effectively.
August 17th, 2007
You’re probably wondering if all those new computer peripherals in the market would work seamlessly with Windows Vista. If you’re going to listen to the guys at Microsoft, chances are is that you’ll be getting a very encouraging answer. However, if you’re going to ask your neighbors, you’ll probably be getting a different and very harrowing response.
Despite the fact that it has been months since the debut of Microsoft’s latest OS, compatibility problems still hound it. The reason is not the lack of drivers. On the contrary, hardware and software makers are relentlessly churning out patches and drivers to ensure that their products would work on Vista. However, the operating system’s stringent requirement before a driver or application can be granted access to it is hampering efforts to rid compatibility issues.
Anathema
This problem is expected to aggravate the slow migration of users to Vista. While Microsoft is confident that people would eventually leave XP for good, the shift is not happening as fast at it wants it to be. One of the things that would definitely encourage users to try Vista is by seeing the PC market flooded with hardware and software that has the “Vista Ready / Capable” seal on them. Unfortunately, Vista’s maker is making it hard for third-party device driver finders or makers to install the necessary applications on the OS.
Microsoft also seems to be not that keen on working with hardware and software makers with regard to the design and release of drivers. Take for instance the ATI tragedy. Some time ago, the graphics engine maker released sets of drivers for its products to be able to run on Vista without a glitch. Unfortunately, the patches made Vista crash. So much for ATI’s efforts to make Vista as the industry standard.
The LD on HD
Drivers are not the only files or applications that are getting a Gestapo treatment from Vista. PC users are also complaining that the new OS prohibits the use, access, and distribution of high-definition contents. While this security feature effectively eliminates the unauthorized use of protected or copyrighted productions, it also indiscriminately refuses to accept legitimate HD contents that the users themselves have made. Take note that many of the home videos that are being produced nowadays are in HD. The technology is not limited to Motown or Hollywood alone.
For a product that has been billed as the very thing that would dictate how technology would develop in the next several years, it’s quite surprising and unfortunate to note that it’s hampering the development of new innovations due to its unbending disposition to reject things or changes that do not conform with its desires and designs.
The overzealousness of Microsoft to protect its OS from unwanted intrusions has caused unwanted results for the users and the manufacturers of peripherals and applications. Its eagerness to kowtow to the requests of copyright owners have also prejudiced many who are filming videos in HD. Microsoft should quickly address these concerns, lest it turn off present and potential Vista clients.
August 10th, 2007
Device drivers act as translators between the different software applications or the operating systems and the device itself. The code, considered to be of higher level, may be encoded independently depending on the particular hardware it may be trying to control. For example, if you’re trying to print a file, the driver will convert the high-level codes to low-level ones, which the printer can understand.
Sometimes, though, device errors may occur. One of its adverse effects is the corruption of the system memory.
Problems in the DMA
DMA (direct memory access) is a typical feature of the more recently released PCs. It permits for particular subsystems of the hardware to gain access into the memory of the system for writing or reading.
A faulty device driver can initiate a wrongful DMA transfer along the bus. This kind of transmission of data can result to the corruption of the system memory. A couple of host bus bridges give you input/output memory management (IMMOU) which permits you to map within the address space of the bus a DMA region going to your system’s memory.
Through this, the bus driver can offer protection to the system’s memory, which is not being utilized for DMA buffers, from possible corruption due to wrongful DMA transfer. The bus driver, however, shouldn’t use the static 1-to-1 mapping, which is from the memory into the bus space, so it can handle DMA transfers. Rather, it should handle dynamic IOMMU mappings. The dma_alloc technique maps to the bus space a memory region, which enables the transfer of DMA. Meanwhile, the dma_free technique considers the mapping invalid, which will then disable DMA towards the memory region. Note, though, that a defective device can still cause DMA buffer corruption being handled by another driver.
Problems in Memory Access and Allocations
Sometimes drivers produce errors due to memory allocation or access. These errors may cause the corruption of the system memory, which may later result to system crash. The usual errors are the following:
1.memory underruns (attempt to access even before the allocated memory starts)
2.memory overruns (attempt to access over the allocated memory’s end)
3.attempt to access system memory that was already freed
Knowing how your driver works, including how it can corrupt memory, can provide you the initial steps to PC troubleshooting, especially in the cases of system crashes.
August 2nd, 2007
Is this the service pack we’ve all been waiting for?
News had spread like wildfire about the availability of a collection of patches that might form the core of Vista’s first Service Pack. The hotfixes are not for Vista though, but for Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Server 2008. Still, Vista users hogged Web sites which offer free downloads of the patches because their OS and Server 2008 are basically built on the same architecture.
The two updates, “Vista Performance and Reliability Pack and “Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack,” were meant for beta testers of Windows Server 2008 only. However, the fixes were leaked to several Web sites, and have since been shared by users on the Internet.
Who’s Asking For It?
Time has pacified clamors for the early release of Vista SP1. Many may have even forgotten all about it. Either they have gotten tired of knocking at Microsoft’s door for it or they have found alternative solutions to their problems. For example, the usefulness of the compatibility and reliability pack has already been watered down by efficient device driver finders on the Internet. Compatibility problems were very common during the first few days of Vista’s release. However, the pandemonium created by Microsoft’s inability to offer solutions or slow response to the problem was already quelled by device driver finders, such as RadarSync, by offering Vista drivers.
As for the performance and reliability pack, its usefulness or necessity might have already been diluted, too, by the release of faster PC hardware and peripherals. Chip makers are coming up with faster and more efficient processors every quarter, making large and complex application processes inconsequential. Likewise, newer and better peripherals, such as video cards and hard drives, are handling heavy software tasks without a sweat. RAM is also getting cheap, with many users being able to pack their units with gigabytes of it. System tools have also played a vital role in keeping PCs in top shape, thereby ensuring that the unit would be able to run programs at optimized speeds.
Something Better
While it’s too early to tell whether these two Server 2008 hotfixes will form the backbone of Vista’s first service pack, many are already telling Microsoft that it should offer something better than the two groups of patches that were recently leaked. While the updates have improved performance and insured the compatibility and reliability of various software and hardware components, the problems that they have fixed are either not that serious or can be easily resolved by other means.
Vista SP1 should answer more serious issues or problems since the less threatening ones have already been solved or can easily be handled by other hardware and software makers. I’m sure Microsoft will come up with something better for Vista. I even think that Vista’s maker deliberately leaked the two updates to gauge user sentiments on whether the fixes are efficient or comprehensive enough. Maybe this is the reason why Microsoft is still gagging itself as to the definite date of Vista SP1’s release.
July 30th, 2007
One of the reasons why I slaughtered my piggy bank last February for the more expensive version of Windows Vista was because of its manufacturer’s promise of extras that would make them look like they got the bad end of the bargain.
While I was already impressed with the features of the basic or low-end versions of Microsoft’s new operating system, I was still curious as to what Vista Ultimate has to or will continuously offer. It’s basically just the same with Vista Home Premium and Vista Business. It more or less just combined the peculiar or exclusive attributes of the two. Of course, there’s more to Ultimate than just the amalgamation of its two less expensive counterparts.
Security and Add-Ons
Vista Ultimate users were promised a more secure OS and a lot of extras that would make their program seem like it’s getting a constant retouch or upgrade. One of the most enticing add-on announced by Redmond was the BitLocker encryption tool. While I greatly considered this security feature when I decided to ditch the free Vista Home edition offer by the computer shop where I bought my new Sony Vaio laptop, what I was really looking forward to was DreamScene. There’s already much hype on the crystal clear, 3-dimensional desktop background of all Windows Vista versions. DreamScene promised to push the feature a notch higher by allowing videos to be played or displayed as your desktop background. Cool, huh?
Nailed Promises
In keeping with its custom of disappointing a good number of its customers, Microsoft has just announced that many of the extras that it promised during the launch of its software will not be immediately available. Since its OS debuted, only four extras have been released by Microsoft, namely: 16 language packs, DreamScene (beta version only), BitLocker (prep tool), and a poker game.
Four extras in 6 months. That’s definitely disappointing. I was so optimistic last February that Microsoft would be able to deliver or make good on their pledges with regard to the extras that I even entertained the thought that DreamScene would already have its second version before the year ends. But alas, even its first version isn’t even out yet. The photo editing tool which was also one of the bannered extras for Ultimate during the months preceding the release of the OS is also nowhere to be found.
Mea Maxima Culpa
To the credit of Microsoft, it didn’t give any excuses or make attempts to exonerate itself for the delays. However, their refusal to give a definite timetable as to the release of the extras is frustrating. What kept me going all these months as far as being patient with the releases is concerned is the hope that many of the pledged add-ons would already be available by the summer.
Its decision to withhold the date of the releases of Ultimate’s extras might help quell demands for the immediate release of the add-ons. However, it might backfire or create an even bigger dilemma for them since Ultimate owners might feel that they’ve been thrown into limbo.
I hope Microsoft would be able deliver on its promises soon. While I commend them for responding to a lot of complaints with regard to their new OS, especially device driver queries and dilemmas, I think that there’s still a lot of room for improvement as far as customer relations and satisfaction is concerned.
July 5th, 2007
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