XP Warning

[Christine Farrelly]

I must warn you all that upgrading to XP when you use an Intuos tablet is not a good idea. I have just installed XP on my machine... The mouse/pen periodically just stops working, occassionally it will restart on it's own - certainly makes drawing difficult. Yes I have upgraded the tablet driver to the latest 'XP version'

On checking the Wacom and XP sites the only info I have found says to move your PS2 mouse when this happens. As I dont have a PS2 mouse installed since I got my intuos mouse that is not much help.

It looks like I will have to wipe my machine to go back to Windows 2000 as you cant re-install it after XP.

If anyone else has upgraded to XP and found a way round this please let me know.

Christine

[Christine Farrelly]

I must warn you all that upgrading to XP when you use an Intuos tablet is not a good idea. I have just installed XP on my machine... The mouse/pen periodically just stops working, occassionally it will restart on it's own - certainly makes drawing difficult. Yes I have upgraded the tablet driver to the latest 'XP version'

On checking the Wacom and XP sites the only info I have found says to move your PS2 mouse when this happens. As I dont have a PS2 mouse installed since I got my intuos mouse that is not much help.

It looks like I will have to wipe my machine to go back to Windows 2000 as you cant re-install it after XP.

If anyone else has upgraded to XP and found a way round this please let me know.

Christine

[jens g.r. benthien]

Christine,

did you only upgrade the OS or your machine as well? If you should happen to have an Athlon, this behavior is very common: the powersupply is too weak. On the 3.3 V + line the Athlon boards need at least 20 Amps output, or the USB bus (your connection to mouse and tablet) disconnect from time to time.

But not only Athlons feature this problem, the P4 boards as well. So if you've connected your mouse or tablet via USB and the next freeze will occur, just try to unplug and plug the mouse or tablet at the USB port. If that thingie will come back to life after this operation, you should invest into a 300 W powersupply with 20 or even 22 Amps on the 3.3 + line...

At least this solved the problems of many users....

jens

jens g.r. benthien
designer
http://jens.highspeedweb.net

[Christine Farrelly]

Hello Jens,

I only upgraded the OS this time - the tablet has been running fine until then and the thought of managing without it is horrifying. I would revert back to Win2K first.

I have a 300Watt power supply - PC is dual P3 processors.

I have since found that I can sometimes get the operation back by reversing the pen to erase mode and back again but as it can happen again after a few minutes even that is not really practical.

Christine

[Klaus Nordby]

Christine: "I have a 300Watt power supply - PC is dual P3 processors."

I would say that 300 Watt is waaaaaaaaaaaay too little for a dual system! Get yourself a new power supply - 400 Watt at the very least. Enermax haver good ones at 430 Watt.


K

[Christine Farrelly]

I'll give that some thought, in the meantime I have re-installed an old PS2 mouse and it appears to be better - looks like XP doesn't like not having a PS2 mouse - it even boots faster now.

Christine

[Khazi]

It's always advisable to have a PS2 mouse installed and available, even if it's tucked out of the way somewhere.
I have upgraded to XP and use an Intuos tablet, with very few problems (There was one, with Photoimpact vs Intuos, but that was a software issue which I described in another forum).
Otherwise, the tablet is fine.
On odd occasions (and I noticed this with Windows 2000, too,) the tablet driver fails to start, usually when I've inadvertently left a tool on the tablet from the previous session.
The quick way around this is to use the normal mouse to enter the Wacom control screen, switch the tablet off and on again, then all is well.
That's one good reason for always a having a PS2 mouse connected!!

Chris