What's the strangest or funniest problem you've had with a computer or device?

I think odd problems are interesting. I had an old P1 Packard Bell that I upgraded from Windows 95 to 98SE. After the upgrade the sound stopped working. It had a "Rocky 1" 14.4k multi-function slot voice modem sound card. The driver that it used was a Packard Bell OEM. It used DSP Parallel Solutions. This uses the parallel port and resources from the printer. I KNOW... RIGHT? I no longer had the printer and I wanted to use an updated WDM driver anyway. I actually had to research it and learn the basics of how it worked to be able to fix it. The only solution I could come up with was a previous BIOS version from another model that didn't support it.

If you've had any really crazy technical problems; I'd be interested in hearing about them.

funny drivers problems strange solutions odd

asked Jul 17 '12 at 17:54

ClosetFuturist
1.7k●6●14●27

9 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

I had a funny virus once which made the 'Your mouse has moved, please restart your computer for changes to take effect' reality :p. Not a very advanced virus since I could still use my computer and remove it from startup and after that from my PC without any extra programs.

answered Jul 19 '12 at 11:11

nitrocrime
3.6k●62●77●125

That's hilarious.

(Jul 19 '12 at 12:49) ClosetFuturist

2	I had a game where the graphics would work fine on high settings but on medium or low settings everything would just be blacked out except the HUD. Very strange. answered Jul 18 '12 at 08:19 ojmar 1.5k●31●38●63 That's a really strange one. (Jul 18 '12 at 18:54) ClosetFuturist

1	BSOD! :D always funny seeing it happen on my old pc's answered Jul 18 '12 at 01:24 jacobthriller1982 231●22●24●33 1 Linux kernel panics can be pretty funny too. (Jul 18 '12 at 18:50) ClosetFuturist

I have the game Minecraft. Sure you have probably heard of it. If not, it is an adventure sandbox game. Well my FPS would fluctuate between 60 and 4 every few minutes. I would have to change ONE graphic setting every 2-3 minutes to run smoothly. ALSO: the fps did NOT drop when walking and looking at the ground. I have optimized the computer, set java as a high priority ( game ran on java ), cleaned the computer, and nothing. Fixed now. Restored to factory and it is quite better.

answered Jul 18 '12 at 08:15

Caelan
1.6k●318●336●364

Yeah! I saw that post. It got pretty complicated.

(Jul 18 '12 at 18:51) ClosetFuturist

The problem with minecraft lag is that it keeps all the rendered map in memory sp when you changed a setting you're forcing it to dump the old cached chunks and re render them

(Jul 19 '12 at 11:34) pjob797

1	Dropped my tower computer in the toilet. JK answered Jul 18 '12 at 18:56 ClaassenTech 1.1k●35●43●61 LOL. The more time goes by the more possible that becomes. (Jul 18 '12 at 19:03) ClosetFuturist

My old computer back in 2003 (some old tower my neighbors gave us since they moved away) suddenly decided to say it wasn't genuine. It kept saying that even if we bought a new licence, which at the time the XP licence was over $200. So we gave up and my dad threw it out and I got to destroy the Hard Drive.

answered Jul 18 '12 at 19:11

DJ Scooby Doo
9.5k●232●279●379

Yeah! I've seen that happen. It's a corrupted .wpa file.

(Jul 18 '12 at 19:48) ClosetFuturist

1	my pc would constantly tun off and on in the night answered Jul 18 '12 at 19:17 Cameron 1.8k●103●127●134 1 I think some of them just get sleepy. :) (Jul 18 '12 at 19:49) ClosetFuturist

It's not a technical error or problem per se, but I remember dialing up BBSs back in the 80s and trying to download anything I could get my hands on. The 'problem' was I didn't know I was dialing US numbers, from Europe... For hours at the time, night after night! Yeah, my Dad really appreciated my baby geek time...

answered Jul 18 '12 at 20:30

TheDutchGuy
946●2●6●21

I missed out on those pre-web1.0 days. I thought "The Draw" was the coolest thing going. I didn't have a clue.

(Jul 18 '12 at 21:09) ClosetFuturist

I loved dialing into BBS systems. The sound of the modem, getting connected and just browse around... I do miss those days sometimes, how corny, weird or uber geeky it may sound...

(Jul 19 '12 at 04:47) TheDutchGuy

(Sings)Meeeemorrrrrrrieeeeeeees.

(Jul 20 '12 at 13:58) ClosetFuturist

Ohh man I remember "the Draw" a really nice DOS based application to make ASCII drawings with. Heck I have even used that to make out some screen for programs that I was making way back then. And saved the source code for screen itself and added them into the source code that I was compiling. Made life somewhat easier back then when learning programming on Pascal and C++ under DOS.

(Jul 20 '12 at 21:03) Compucore

I never learned how to use it. I knew someone that made a wireframe space shuttle. I was blown away. Back then all I knew was the basic DOS commands and how to build a data base in QD2. I didn't get serious with CG until after the turn of the century. Since then I've come across situations where I wish I had the skills to work in the lower levels. I tried to find a copy of The Draw on the net a few years back. No luck.

(Jul 25 '12 at 02:51) ClosetFuturist

I went through a ridiculous process to install Windows on my MacBook (That has an optibay where the disk drive should be). The only purpose was to play PC games. Firstly it kept blue-screening all the time (It fixed itself), Then nothing would install. Direct X, Java, none of it would work. After I finally got it all working and the games installed none of them would start (They still won't). They'ed just hang and I'd eventually have to close them. Only ONE game would work out of my 100 or so PC games - Alien vs. Predator. The first Alien level loaded and worked perfectly, however on the second level and the first human and first predator levels, the world simply didn't load, objects like boxes and chairs would, but no walls or floor. You'd just instantly fall out of the world to your death. Urgh!

answered Jul 18 '12 at 20:48

Mattophobia ♦♦
7.0k●73●122●206

LOL! Did the boxes and chairs fall too?

(Jul 18 '12 at 21:13) ClosetFuturist

Nope. The game coding didn't give objects like that any physics! They were just generic scenery! It was really weird. I still can't figure out what's wrong with it since there's no errors, things just won't work! Very odd.

(Jul 19 '12 at 10:48) Mattophobia ♦♦

The static meshes and player model were behaving normally but for some odd reason the basic map assets weren't loading. It would stand to reason that the first and second levels would load in in the same manor. That's a real head scratcher.

(Jul 20 '12 at 14:05) ClosetFuturist

Your answer

toggle preview

community wiki

Follow this question

By Email:

Once you sign in you will be able to subscribe for any updates here

By RSS:

Answers

Answers and Comments

Markdown Basics

*italic* or __italic__
**bold** or __bold__
link:[text](http://url.com/ "title")
image?![alt text](/path/img.jpg "title")
numbered list: 1. Foo 2. Bar
to add a line break simply add two spaces to where you would like the new line to be.
basic HTML tags are also supported

learn more about Markdown