Stupid Computer Mistakes

Unfortunately, Sometimes It's Not the Computer that's Stupid...It's Me

by Craig Anderton

Usually, I like to write about some clever trick. But this time, I want to explore stupidity, particularly because stupidity breeds stupidity: Sometimes a stupid mistake will make you do an even stupider mistake, like re-installing your computer's operating system when it isn't really necessary. Here's a chance to learn from my stupid mistakes, and those of others.

GETTING LOOPED ISN'T JUST ABOUT DRINKING

I was trying out a new interface. I booted up my host program, loaded a sequence, hit play, and...got blasted across the room by a loud buzz. Latency problem? Eventually I realized that the loop left and right locators were on top of each other, and loop was enabled. I separated the loop locators, and all was well.

GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND

I was doing some Pro Tools work with a Digi MBox 2, then wanted to use it with a Sonar project. The file would play briefly, then quit. I spent hours trying to find a solution. Finally, I googled "Sonar Mbox2 'known issues' buzz interface audio." Up popped a discussion forum that mentioned that you should avoid using Sonar's multiprocessing mode with the MBox 2. I unchecked multiprocessing, and got back to work.

SO THAT'S WHY THEY'RE CALLED "READ ME" FILES

Another Sonar tale: I wanted to try the ReValver SE guitar amp with Sonar 5. So I put a signal through it, and got the sound of a blue jay stuck in a blender, processed by ring modulation. I emailed Cakewalk support, and it turned out that at that time, ReValver wasn't compatible with Sonar's 64-bit double-precision audio engine - as stated in the Read Me file. But the stupid mistake wasn't not reading the Read Me file; I had read it when I first installed the program. The stupid mistake was not checking the Read Me file first.

KILLING A COMPUTER WITH KINDNESS

Fig. 1: Installing a program? Make sure any anti-virus software is disabled. Better yet, keep your music computer off the net as much as possible to minimize the chance of getting viruses in the first place.

I upgraded my daughter's computer with a new graphics card. I turned the power back on, and booted to a...black screen. Then I remembered I hadn't disabled the onboard graphics. Once disabled, it worked great. The same thing often holds true for Windows sound cards: Disable any onboard sound to avoid conflicts.

DON'T TRY, TRY AGAIN

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. If something goes wrong, and you try to fix it but it still doesn't work, don't try the same fix again. One friend tried to install a program and it wouldn't install. So he tried installing it again. And again, with the same results. Then he tried uninstalling other programs in case there was a conflict. Finally, he called me in desperation.

I asked if he'd forgotten to disable his anti-virus software during installation (Fig. 1). There was a very long pause at the other end of the phone.

NATURE ABHORS A VACUUM, AND SO DOES A COMPUTER

Help keep a computer clean by not letting dust get into it - throw a plastic cover over it when not in use. If it does get dirty inside, use compressed air to blow out the dirt. Do not open up the case and use a vacuum cleaner. They're designed to vacuum Big Things like rooms, not delicate Little Things like computers.

SO THAT'S WHY THEY'RE CALLED BETA DRIVERS

I have a friend - let's call him, oh, Craig - who because of his gig, needs to stay on top of the latest upgrades. He's smart enough to know that not updating drivers can lead to problems, but not smart enough to know that updating with beta drivers is not a good idea - as he found out when trying out beta drivers for his graphics card, and every time he moved a window in his sequencer there was a symphony of little clicks. Now I - I mean, Craig - knows better. He also knows how to roll back drivers to previous versions.

IT PAYS TO LISTEN

When your computer is trying to tell you something by making a strange noise, don't be stupid and pretend it will go away. Is it quieter than normal? Maybe a fan died, so your CPU might be next. Is there a grinding noise? The bearings on a hard drive might be going - back up immediately. Your ears can be valuable early warning indicators if you pay attention.

UPGRADES GONE WILD

Congratulations! You upgraded your cheapo computer with two new hard drives, a hot graphics card, DVD-ROM writer, lots more RAM, DSP board, and a couple new interface cards. And your computer's great - until after about 12 minutes, when it starts acting flaky and does spontaneous reboots. Hmm...did you upgrade the power supply, too so there's enough juice to feed all this stuff? Ooops.

THE RIGHT WAY TO DO DRIVER UPDATES

I've done driver updates wrong so may times let's just proceed directly to how to do them right. A driver is a software routine that provides a bridge for data between a piece of hardware, like an audio interface or graphics card, and your computer's innards. Drivers are updated often, both to improve performance and to eliminate conflicts that either didn't exist or weren't noticed when a product was first introduced.

It's important to keep on top of driver updates, and not just for your audio interface. For example, if you use a PCI sound card and PCI graphics card, there could be conflicts between the two that a driver upgrade will resolve. But there's one caution: Sometimes a new driver will solve old problems, but introduce new ones. Make sure you know how to roll back a driver (e.g., using System Restore with Windows XP) before you install a new one, and never install multiple new drivers - try one, then test, then the next, then test, etc.