Cosmos II x750 Issues

K

koswix

New member
I've just received my new Cosmos II x750 (via my insurance company(via ebuyer, I think)). Arrived an hour and a half ago, and so far I've encountered two problems:

1. Wifi - I think this is probably a Windows 8.1 problem, but the wifi is really flaky. It's taken about 45 minutes for windows to connect to my router and believe it's online. Yes the password is correct. Yes I rebooted my router - even though none of my other wifi devices are having problems (2 other laptops, two android phones, sky+ box, wireless printer...). I'm now on my second boot of the laptop and it's still flaky - takes ages to connect, and when it does connect it claims 'limited connectivity' for about 10 minutes before randomly beginning to work properly. Thought it might be an issue with the crappy firewall that's pre-installed, so I've got rid of that but no difference.

2. "Sound Blaster Cinema has stopped working". This message pops up every time I log into windows, including the very first boot of the machine. It's pretty worrying if PC Specialist can't reliably sysprep a new machine and ensure the various drivers and support programs actually work.


Is the Windows disc that comes with the machine a recovery image, or a normal installation disc? Given the issues out of the box I'm probably going to have to wipe this machine and start from scratch.
 
mantadog

mantadog

Superhero Level Poster
The disk in the box is a copy of windows, not a recovery image.

Now it just so happens I had to troubleshoot a friends non PCS laptop for the very same wifi issue. Out of interest do you have a BT home hub? Turned out it was a bit of a fail between the BT hub and windows 8... Have you tried right clicking the little signal bar bit that shows you how strong the reception is and clicking troubleshoot? Turned out some setting on the wifi card was messed up and the troubleshooting utility fixed it.

The SoundBlaster problem could happen to any machine at pretty much any time, uninstall it and re install it will fix it.
 
K

koswix

New member
A quick look on Google shows many, many people having wifi issues with 8.1. I've checked settings, run the troubleshooter, turned things off and on again but to no avail. It's a waiting game - leave it long enough and it starts working by itself.

As for the Sound Blaster Cinema thing - rubbish. It transpired after my post that none of the preinstalled hardware relate software worked, all closing with the same error message (Intel Hd control panel, Geforce utility, etc.). These issues must have been present when the machine left PCS and shows a shocking lack of quality control.

I've nuked the install and started fresh, and most things are working now. The only exception is I'm left with an unknown hardware item which appears to be the Insyde Airplane Mode Minidriver. Sadly the included driver with the machine is rejected by Windows 8 as it is "not meant for this platform".
 
K

koswix

New member
mantadog said:
Yeah well if it was more than just one application I see what you mean. Your OP just makes mention of 1 piece of software, if the lot is failing then it was probably caused by a windows issue.
Click to expand...

ANY piece of software failing on first boot on a brand new machine is a failure of the supplier to adequately test their build, image and sysprep procedure. To say that it could happen to any computer at any time is a rather weak excuse. Of course any piece of software can randomly go a bit wrong (especially bloatware from hardware manufacturers), but in order for that to happen there must be some kind of change made (knowingly or otherwise). Given that the last people to turn on my machine before I received it were the people that assembled it, there's really no excuse for it.


Thanks for the link to the driver, hopefully that'll work (at work just now so can't try it :( ). Don't suppose you know where the trackpad driver is? Need to turn off tap-to-click before I pull my hair out!
 
mantadog

mantadog

Superhero Level Poster
I think your placing too much faith in software's ability to install itself perfectly every time, have no conflict issues with other hardware and no problems with the installation of windows. Yes the last people to have it powered on was PCS but they wouldn't have had it in the full windows 8 environment, something could have gone wrong in the software as you did your 'first time setup'. Anyway its working correctly now I think we can stop debating the finer points of how windows like to behave.

can you do into device manager and update the trackpad driver from that? I don't have a link to the driver myself but you could look in the driver download section in your PCS account? Login and look on the left hand side for the download section.
 
K

koswix

New member
No, apparently I'm putting too much faith with PCS. Every other manufacturer I've bought from over the past 20 years has managed to provide a system that at the very least manages to boot successfully first time (apart from a Dell which was doa...)

When I'm forking over the thick end of 700 quid I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the preinstalled OS and apps to function out of the box, so that I don't have to waste half a day reinstalling everything.

As for the track pad, windows has identified it as a ps/2 mouse and is quite happy to stick with the generic driver. Can't remember if the driver was on the CD actually, better check that.

Is there a driver download section on the PCS site? I couldn't see one when I looked.
 
mantadog

mantadog

Superhero Level Poster
I think you are missing the point, wilfully or not, you are missing the point. I know it's a pain in the neck to have to do it but it's totally outwith the control of PCS, if the OS develops a fault causing things to crash it COULD have happened on your initial setup- PCS cannot mitigate a problem like that. I have had it happen to me once before on an installation.

You are quite right to expect it to work out of the box, I expect my car to drive off from the dealers without having to charge the battery, but honestly computers will never run out of ways to go wrong no matter how strict your procedures are!

ANYWAY... I'm done defending PCS now

As far as the driver goes, yeah the CD would be worth a look. The download section is located in your account and only contains drivers for your build.

Log in to your account on the main page. Now look on the left hand side, about half way down is a box called tech support, bottom of that box is download. Once thast open, click your order and the relevant drivers should show up.
 
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