I would like to address a serious issue that I have been facing with this product for the last eight months. In short it is causing my computer to crash, it being a Hewlett-Packard DV9005ca. It has also done the same to my other laptop a ThinkPad T30. The IBM runs XP professional and the HP runs XP media. The HP is brand-new and has crashed at least 10 times in the last seven months. I also use it much more than the IBM.
The problem is always the same, every few weeks I lose the mouse due to a total failure. It just freezes up. I'm a quadriplegic so this is a nightmare for me. I have someone then shut down the Smartnav software and restart it and it never works again. We then have to attempt to re-boot the computer and that goes nowhere as well. In short we have to power the machine off and that spells the end every time. It will very often boot back into a very damaged state. I have spotted the problem in the events log and it shows a service refusing to shut down causing errors. This happens on both computers although the damage is far more severe on the XP media. If it wasn't for Norton ghost I would've lost it months ago. The only thing in common with these computers is the Smartnav unit and its software of which I have used four different versions since I bought it back in November 2006. I have been recently given another unit known as a Head mouse and am going to switch to it as I'm really getting tired of these multiple crashes that can only be caused by this product. I cannot believe how much damage this unit and its software crashes my computers. Why are there no Linux drivers for this product? This would never happen in the Linux environment of that I am sure. The last thing disabled people need is any grief from Microsoft products that are susceptible to crashing as bad as this. I have had a few people take a look at this problem and we have gone through the forums as well. I have two other friends that have the same HP laptop as I do and since they are not using this product they are reporting no crashes whatsoever. I switch between both laptops and it happens almost every time sometimes after a few weeks, sometimes just after a few days. One time it crashed so badly, after the mouse froze up again, that the crash even destroyed my other partition. I have not seen crashes like this since Windows 95. Whenever the Smartnav unit is not plugged into the computer the computer runs just fine in the hands of a normal user. I give up; it crashed again yesterday for the last time. I just can't take this anymore I'm disabled and I need my computer to run as smoothly as possible. I cannot fix this every time and I have to rely on others which can be quite time consuming and I lose an entire day or two to this problem every time. Would it kill you to produce a Linux driver? I am using the latest version of the software, not the Vista version which I also tried and got the same problem.
Smartnav hell
Re: Smartnav hell
Both systems are laptops?
Do you have the latest chipset drivers, and motherboard bios installed for each system?
There is nothing within the SmartNAV software that would cause you to loose a HDD partition.
Are you plugging in directly to the system, or are you using a hub?
Have you tried isolating the device on the USB ports?
Have you tried turn off any kind of power save feature for your USB ports?
In the "Device Manager" you can right click the "USB Hub"(s), that show, and then select properties. On the power management tab, uncheck the box that allows the computer to turn off the USB port to save power (i.e. uncheck the box). Sometimes that has an impact on the connectivity of the devices.
Do you have the latest chipset drivers, and motherboard bios installed for each system?
There is nothing within the SmartNAV software that would cause you to loose a HDD partition.
Are you plugging in directly to the system, or are you using a hub?
Have you tried isolating the device on the USB ports?
Have you tried turn off any kind of power save feature for your USB ports?
In the "Device Manager" you can right click the "USB Hub"(s), that show, and then select properties. On the power management tab, uncheck the box that allows the computer to turn off the USB port to save power (i.e. uncheck the box). Sometimes that has an impact on the connectivity of the devices.
Re: Smartnav hell
Yes both laptops have the latest in chipset drivers and bios as well. Both machines are fully updated in every way possible. I plug the unit directly into the USB port on each machine. We have already made our adjustments to the power settings in the device manager and it seems to us that it improved much more on the IBM ThinkPad using XP Pro than the newer HP laptop. HP laptop uses an AMD dual core with one gig of RAM and Windows media. The power settings have not been that beneficial to this computer. I suspect XP Pro on the other machine is more robust and seems to be tougher than this XP media. Both are unchecked and free from power schemes.
As for the hard drive crash that ruined the partition that was the worst Windows crash I have ever seen and it was preceded by the same mouse lockup which then made this program useless and that it wouldn't restart again. Attempting to restart the computer was futile, it just wouldn't do anything then we had to shut it down by way of a hard shutdown using the power button and that sent the computer or the hard drive rather, right into a nosedive where I lost everything on the drive on both partitions. That happened back in May and it was painful. It took four days of people trying to help me reinstall everything. So every time it crashes after that my heart goes through the roof in total fear of losing everything again even though I do have an external backup.
To reiterate, the problem begins when the mouse seems to just freeze up and then the computer hangs on shutdown or restart until we do a hard shutdown. Trying to exit the software to restart it again in the hopes that will revive the mouse does not work because the program will not restart again until we reboot the computer into a complete mess and from there it's only a matter of time before a complete and total crash. One thing I should mention. When the computer is rebooting it automatically goes into CHKDSK and it reveals miles of disk error messages. I get a steady stream of replacing file messages and resorting the order etc. I can't remember exactly what it says but it's along those lines and when it boots up after trying to repair the damage it boots into an abysmal state of affairs. When that mouse freezes up it pretty much signals the end to me. This would not happen in Linux. I really wish you guys would come out with a Linux version. 2007 is the year of the Linux desktop and it's only going to get better and better from here.
As for the hard drive crash that ruined the partition that was the worst Windows crash I have ever seen and it was preceded by the same mouse lockup which then made this program useless and that it wouldn't restart again. Attempting to restart the computer was futile, it just wouldn't do anything then we had to shut it down by way of a hard shutdown using the power button and that sent the computer or the hard drive rather, right into a nosedive where I lost everything on the drive on both partitions. That happened back in May and it was painful. It took four days of people trying to help me reinstall everything. So every time it crashes after that my heart goes through the roof in total fear of losing everything again even though I do have an external backup.
To reiterate, the problem begins when the mouse seems to just freeze up and then the computer hangs on shutdown or restart until we do a hard shutdown. Trying to exit the software to restart it again in the hopes that will revive the mouse does not work because the program will not restart again until we reboot the computer into a complete mess and from there it's only a matter of time before a complete and total crash. One thing I should mention. When the computer is rebooting it automatically goes into CHKDSK and it reveals miles of disk error messages. I get a steady stream of replacing file messages and resorting the order etc. I can't remember exactly what it says but it's along those lines and when it boots up after trying to repair the damage it boots into an abysmal state of affairs. When that mouse freezes up it pretty much signals the end to me. This would not happen in Linux. I really wish you guys would come out with a Linux version. 2007 is the year of the Linux desktop and it's only going to get better and better from here.
Re: Smartnav hell
Is anybody else having this problem? I am finding the mouse freezes up more while I'm using Google Earth than any other application.
Hard drive is defragmented and everything else is up to date including latest Java updates. Why is this software doing this? It's a given that it will freeze and refuse to cooperate at some point. As a quadriplegic and I don't have a lot of money so you can imagine my frustration with this product as it continuously locks up at some point. I have recently had someone reinstall Windows and rebuild my computer to my liking and everything is working like a charm except for this software. Why? This is BS, I've never seen software lock up like this and lock up the entire computer. I'm very disappointed in this product as this has gone on for months. It just never stops.
Hard drive is defragmented and everything else is up to date including latest Java updates. Why is this software doing this? It's a given that it will freeze and refuse to cooperate at some point. As a quadriplegic and I don't have a lot of money so you can imagine my frustration with this product as it continuously locks up at some point. I have recently had someone reinstall Windows and rebuild my computer to my liking and everything is working like a charm except for this software. Why? This is BS, I've never seen software lock up like this and lock up the entire computer. I'm very disappointed in this product as this has gone on for months. It just never stops.
Re: Smartnav hell
What other applications do you have running in the background?
This is not a normal occurence, and I am wondering if another application is trying to use the same USB/mouse resources at the same time, which then starts a conflict for system resources.
This is not a normal occurence, and I am wondering if another application is trying to use the same USB/mouse resources at the same time, which then starts a conflict for system resources.