Unusual

Here's something strange. When I bought my PSP, I got it from America. It's a lot cheaper to do that. I also bought some RAM while I was at it. Another 2GB to put on my 1GB that was already there. PC3200, it's not that new, but it does the trick. Anyway, I plugged it in (while cutting my hand on my Zalman fan cooling blades), and as soon as I did, my USB flash drive stopped working. It would search for ages, and come up blank. Nothing USB worked.

Odd.

I took the RAM out, and everything was fine again. Now I've just paid close to $100 on this, so it wasn't going to waste. I went into the BIOS and turned off USB 2.0, and the problem went away. How very odd.

I did a little looking, and it's not just me. When you combine these various, innocuous factors into a computer:

More than 2GB of RAM,
Windows Vista and a
nVidia Chipset

USB 2.0 fails. Impatient to try out my games with improved RAM and getting to leave Firefox running, I left it on USB 1.1 and continued on with life. It didn't bother me until I needed to transfer a 700MB file from my external hard drive. Instead of waiting for it over USB 1.1, I turned my computer off, unplugged two of my four RAM sticks (and incurred further cuts), turned USB 2.0 on, transferred the file, then put everything back. That was faster than waiting. Says a lot about the speed improvements, doesn't it?

Anyway, I got bored of this, 1.1 was having an effect on my response time of my MIDI keyboard, and I worried for my new 1kHz polling mouse. I decided to fix it. More research led me to a Microsoft fix specifically for USB problems on nVidia chipsets. Problem: I can't pass a WGA check, and can't download from Microsoft.com. I searched for workarounds for ages, only realising there was a completely working and legal copy of Vista downstairs on my mother's computer. Before it came to that, searching for the fix file name on Google heralded a direct link, and saved me from getting out of my chair.

Worse than not having USB 2.0, Photoshop suddenly failed a few weeks ago. I Photoshop frequently, for fun. Most people I know learnt it for the Graphics module and subsequently forgot it after they got a passing grade. Like 3DS Max. Shame, they are great programs, and I have continued to use both (3DS Max to a lesser degree, it's not as much fun as Photoshop). But Photoshop decided that whenever you make a new file or open an old one, it hangs, thinking and not responding. That won't do. I managed to get it working once after a series of reinstalls and a Windows Restore. But only once. And once I'd closed it, it stopped again. Scouring the Adobe knowledgebase, I found a reason: it's looking for a networked printer that isn't plugged in. It'll search for hours before it lets you start. I just uninstalled the printer from my computer, and it was solved.

My computer is working very smoothly. Half Life 2 won't acknowledge my updated driver, but it's not a big problem. I am still yet to put in my new DVD burner.

EDIT: You guys aren't commenting. Come back.