drivers

Carlo has a small laptop with a USB 3.0 port. But suddenly, it won't read USB 2. What gives? Leo says that USB 3.0 is supposed to be backwards compatible as long as the plug is Type A. It could be a faulty connector, or the connector pins are dirty. The connector could have also shorted out. Shine a light in and look for some cruft, or even damage on the surface of the contacts. ScooterX in the chatroom suggests that it may be a driver issue. Go into the device manager (windows key + X) and look to see if there's a red X. Or delete the drivers and then restart to reinstall.

Sam had three laptops upgraded to Windows 10, but one won't work with the trackpad. Leo says that a driver may be missing. Leo recommends going to the laptop manufacturer website and looking for a driver package for his laptop. If that doesn't work, he should try using the Windows 8.1 driver. It should be OK to do so. Sam should look in the device manager for any red "X", which indicates devices without a driver.

Anthony has Windows 7, and he's started having problems with his keyboard and mouse after a recent update. He tried to talk to Microsoft about it, but the tech told him there was a conflict and the updates it was installing were actually for Windows 10, and it would cost him $300 to resolve it. Leo says whoever that was he was talking to wasn't Microsoft. Leo says in theory that could happen, but Microsoft Update is smart enough to not do that. It should only be installing Windows 7 updates for a Windows 7 machine.

Simon recently encountered the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. He suspected it may be his Chrome browser. Could it be? Leo says that modern versions of Windows don't really allow a program to call a BSOD these days. The operating system protects against it. But it could be a bad driver. Flakey hardware like a power supply or loose RAM can also cause it. But Chrome doesn't have system access to cause a BSOD. If he can replicate it, that could lead him toward the culprit. If it's crashing right away, that's usually a hardware issue.

Greg's mouse cursor is freezing and it's making a loud audible noise. Leo says he suspects the mouse is experiencing a hard crash of the mouse. Unplugging the mouse and plugging it back in will fix it. It's also a sign of a worn out mouse cable, causing connectivity issues. It could also be a problem with his USB plug, or even the USB controller chip on the motherboard. He should check the drivers. And then, try to get a cheap PCI USB card and see if he can make it work. If it does, then he'll know it's the motherboard USB controller. But Leo suspects it's the mouse drivers.

Ben runs a Drobo 5N, but after he updated Windows 10 to the 1803 update, he started having trouble with it. He reset Windows, and now the Drobo won't connect. He even tried to use the image backup and it didn't work. Leo says that Microsoft changed the way it handles the network stack in 1803, and it may require extra drivers from Drobo to fix it.

Marshall has a friend who needs to reinstall Windows 10. Leo says to download the Microsoft Media Installer and install it on a thumb drive. That will then enable him to install the OS from USB. Marshall says he's having trouble because it can't see his hard drive. Leo says that it sounds like it's a hybrid drive and Marshall may need to update his drivers in order to install. Leo says that Intel's 32GB SSDs were hybrid drives paired with a spinning hard drive. It's not a good solution at all. The OS is going to see two drives instead of one and when he goes to install, it may have issues.

Tom uses Ubuntu, and lately, he's ran into issues updating his HP computer. Leo says that Linux only works on a computer that has drivers that are written for it. When people update, they may run into issues where their drivers have been "broken." It's often a video driver issue. Starting over and trying again will cause Linux to choose the right driver and continue. But if not, then it's a driver or hardware compatibility issue.

Paul has a Dell workstation running Windows 7, but when he opens the contacts, the screen goes wonky and it jitters to the point where he can't use it. He swapped devices and it doesn't repeat, and it's not the cables. Leo says that narrows it down to the video card. But he tried it with a different monitor and it does it. So that indicates a weird browser problem that gets triggered by the monitor. Leo says to boot into safe mode and remove Chrome. Then he should try and reinstall it. It could just be a bad install.

Robert built his own computer with a nice Gigabyte motherboard, but his USB 3 video card isn't working with it. Leo says that's likely because his third-party card doesn't want to use the USB 3 chip on the motherboard. It has it's own. When he plugs the card into his PCI-Express slot, he should make sure it's properly seated and is a 4 lane slot. If Windows doesn't recognize it, then he should make sure the PCI-Express slot is enabled. He can refer to his motherboard manual on how. Also, he should check in the Windows 10 device manager to see if there's an "X" on the USB hub.