Question Wacom Intuos mouse freeze, monitor drop: update or else?

gn842a

Honorable
Oct 10, 2016
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My goal in posting is 1. To put the symptom and cure out there and 2. To find out if there are other updates that will lead to system collapse if I ignore them?

My desktop started behaving weirdly. The mouse would freeze was symptom number one, making it difficult to use the desktop at all. The second symptom was that the desktop refused to run two monitors at once. One or the other, but not both, which however it has been doing since its incept date in June 2019.

We did a lot of sleuthing step by step and after swapping cable and swapping out mouses and changing USB ports where stuff is plugged and even hauling out alternative monitors to set up, to sum up it was all working, but the system was not.

My wife has computer science degree and is mostly a database programmer but she got increasingly agitated about my Waco Intuous graphics pad which I use in the most primitive way possible, as a whiteboard when doing zoom presentations. She wouldn't say why she just kept getting agitated and reaching to unplug it. OK then. We unplugged it.

And then the world was as it should be. Everything worked.

I confessed to her that the Intuos Wacom had been asking for an update for several weeks but that I had been ignoring it. So I plugged it back in and updated it.

And so, for the past 5 days or so, everything has worked.

I kind of feel that this is a mean way to run an update. "Do it or we sabotage your entire system. " Say what? Is that normal? Are there other things that do that? Now I'm worried that I'm going to have to pay attention to driver updates. I'm not looking forward to that.

I will say that on a non-PC matter, my Android phone, I had to ignore OS updates because I was using a Wal-mart purchased Samsung on the Wal-mart Straight talk system. It turned out that Straight Talk does not provide updates and Samsung does not provide updates to Samsungs sold by Wal-mart (most Samsung owners can drop in at Best Buy and get an update, but not owners of Wal-mart phones). So I had a phone for about 5 years, never updated once, but gradually what was happening was that my apps would no longer work with the antique OS. Who knows what hacker ruffians ran wild in my data.

Until this incident with Intuos, I have never been forced to do an update on a desktop. It might be a good idea, but never: do this, or your whole system won't work. I am not a complete primitive. I let Windows 10 do its automatic updates.

GN
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
In the world of computing(and everything else in between that and life) everything tends to have a clause or a disclaimer. Updates are introduced to patch a flaw or a bug or worse a defective product. If the defect is beyond repair by the end user, then it either qualifies for an RMA or a recall. In this day and age, it's upon the end user to do their due research and perhaps ask around forums if XYZ patch/firmware update/BIOS version is good or if we should avoid it. I had to do so for a client's build with an EVGA Z170 Stinger where the board had a particular distaste towards one BIOS version and people who ended up with bricked boards(other Z170 chipset EVGA boards) suggested to steer clear of it.

There have been instances where the OS mentioned above had users reboot since the update was already applied without the option to refuse...even if you count the 1 week reminder period, it still will update without your "permission".

I don't mean any offence, in any manner, shape or form. I had to undergo the same thing with Razer's Marauder keyboard. I was suggested to update the firmware courtesy of their support site but I ended up with a keyboard that had dead RGB lights for the better part of 6 years until recently while the keyboard was purchased in 2010. I was prepared to chuck it in the bin if the lights didn't come back to life. I then decided to reflash the firmware while on Windows 10(prior on Windows 7) and the lights came back, hence why I said until recently(which is 5 months ago).