FireWire Fiasco, 2 month process

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JHausma2002

Posts: 26   +0
Ok, this is a problem that has been bugging me for many months. I have tried everything, and I mean everything. First my specs:
Intel P4 1.4ghz
512 ram
Soundblaster Live! Value
Gateway:diediediediedie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.....sorry

Alright, well, first off, I'm into making movies with my friends. I use a Sony Digital Handycam, and upload to my pc via a Pyro Firewire IEEE-1394 Card. Well, I used to be able to do this, but one fateful day, I turned on my camera and plugged it in and my pc locked up. I turned off the camera, and the PC unlocked.(I thought that was odd) (When locked, cannot ctrl-alt-delete). THese are the things I tried:
Reverted Drive to when it worked: nada
Called Gateway: took me through some config options, nada
REFORMATTED COMPUTER: nada
Unistalled drivers in safe mode and reinstalled: same prob
Bought new card: same problem (so the card being the prob is out of the pic)
Tried neighbors camera: nada (made it pretty obvious that the pc itself was to blame)
Gateway refused to help me anymore unless I bought THEIR 1394 card: same problem
Gateway refused to help me ANYWAY, citing it was Sonys problem: THE COLD HEARTED B@!$@*DS!
Uncle suggested that it might be sharing an IRQ with something..AND IT WAS! I was so happy: I moved the card the another port and made sure it was on it's on IRQ, PLUGGED IT IN............Lockup

At this point I was ready to kill something. This is stressing me out so much I think I am losing my hair. (I'm 16) Please ANY advice you could give me would be great. I'm probably forgetting something that I did, it'll come to me. PLEASE HELP.
 
What OS are you using?

If it's an IRQ problem, which it sounds like, you can't change the IRQ by just switching PCI slots, you have to change the IRQ via the Device Manager. I would give you directions to the DM, but I don't know what Windows you're using, if even using Windows...
 
Win Me

Gateway locks down their computers so that you cannot change ICQ at all, it simply won't allow it. All that you can do is change the slot and hope it ends up on a different one. I'm running Windows ME.
 
Gateway....

In that case, contact Gateway's technical support team and ask them for directions, or for them to change the IRQ. It's their fault, and they better fix your problem.
 
Gateway

I agree totaly, and they refuse to help me. They insist that it is a camera problem even though my neighbors did not work either. Granted, it is a Sony, but if there was an incompatibility issue with Sony cameras, they'd have a big mess on their hands, and BOTH cameras can't be faulty. However Gateway has literally told me that there was nothing I can do, and they refuse to do anything to help me, so I'm on my own.....ah man this is killing me.
 
Re: Gateway

Originally posted by JHausma2002
I agree totaly, and they refuse to help me. They insist that it is a camera problem even though my neighbors did not work either. Granted, it is a Sony, but if there was an incompatibility issue with Sony cameras, they'd have a big mess on their hands, and BOTH cameras can't be faulty. However Gateway has literally told me that there was nothing I can do, and they refuse to do anything to help me, so I'm on my own.....ah man this is killing me.
Click to expand...

/RANT MODE ON....

That's pretty much standard fair, I am afraid. It goes on in the computing industry a lot. People are constantly finding parts of the system that they do not have to take responsibility for, and then blaming problems on that part, instead of considering that its their own part or a combination of both that is causing the problem.

Its almost illustrated classically in my work where, much to my constant annoyance, we are forced to marry a Windows 2000 domain system with a Novell directory service. One team (us) supports the Windows 2000 part and another (boo!) supports the Novell. Needless to say, each side is constantly blaming the other for any networking problems. Except me, of course. I know that its Novell that's the problem ;) ;)

Certainly when it comes to big companies, you get that a lot. In any case, you were probably speaking to some lower end minion when you called, who probably knows sweet FA about computers and is gleaning their "knowledge" from reading a flow chart that's been pre-prepared.

Please believe me all of you when I say that there are many, many, many people working in the IT industry who have a pathetic grasp of computing. Some of them are even earning a great deal of money, and are trusted by higher authorities as being "experts" in the field. They go home to their husbands and wives and talk about their "high powered IT jobs" when in fact they are daily saying a silent prayer in thanks that some 21 year old kid working layers under them is a computing genius and is doing 90% of their IT work for them. I know because that at this particular point in my career, I AM THAT KID! The person you probably spoke to at Gateway was likely the same. He or she will likely know about as much about computers as a banana knows about self determination for South Maldavian people, so its to an "Engineer" that you must take your problem.

I remember when I first called Dell technical support. Now I was, rather foolishly, expecting some wonderful knowledge to drip from their lips like registry edits, etc.... Imagine my shock when, after about 30 mins on the phone with some dude, his best suggestion was "try reinstalling Windows."

Anyone that works in system administration / technical support and actually knows what they are doing knows that a complete format and reinstall is pretty much the last resort. There is no way that one could do that all of the time to solve problems, especially with servers. "Oh, sorry you could not log on today, we had a minor problem and decided to completely reinstall the domain controller.... sorry...." Whilst I will admit that often I have to wind up completely reinstalling workstations anyway, just to shut certain users up, I'd much rather try to find the actual answer to the problem than just format it away.

Anyway, I digress. If you want to get anything out of Gateway, I would stop wasting your money on phone calls and fire up Word and prepare a complete report of the problem from start to finish, explaining the various avenues of investigation that you have taken, what conclusions you think can be made, etc. Post it back here and perhaps we can take a look at it for you. Then e-mail it away, along with a cover letter saying that you spend a lot of money on computer equipment, and that you are also a IT equipment buyer for a large company (just lie.) Tell them that if you can't get at least some kind of lead to go on from them that its likely that you will not be recommending their products in future computer purchases. That kind of thing tends to scare folks. If you get no joy after that then you are completely on your own (except for us, of course....)

/RANT MODE OFF....
 
Ok

Ok, thanks, I'm gonna get craking on that report. I do have a Gateway Country store near me, and I'm planning on taking it in to be serviced, however I imagine I'll encounter the same red tape as I did on the phone. It's worth a shot though. While I'm working on that report, if theres ANYTHING you guys could think of trying that I haven't done already, I would really appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.
 
Can u not flash Bios so all settings are lost and the board is same as a retail 1 ?
Does ya uncle have A firewire card or could u get an adaptor USB and sell firewire card if they make them.
 
Flash

My uncle doesn't have a firewire, and I'm not sure if those adapters exist, that would be great though. However, the flash thing does sound enticing, could someone please post the details on what to do....will I lose my files, where to go, etc. Thanks for the feedback guys.
 
You might not be able to flash your BIOS, since it most likely is a Gateway proprietary board. Flashing is probably be the last thing Gateway wants you to do. You won't lose any of the data in your hard drive, only in your BIOS, it will be returned to the original factory settings. Whether this will help or not, I'm not sure, but hey, might as well try everything, right?
 
Mobo

Ok just an update: out of desperation I think I'm going to get a new motherboard, Athlon this time. Any tips for this purchase? I want one with the firewire port built right in.
 
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