Cougar Owners

[FOGOLD]

Copying message I put on Frugals world. I am convinmced this is causing lockups.

SYSTEM VERIFICATION ERROR INSTTUB 201.SYS (WDM DRIVER ERROR 20E) STTUB 201.SYS + 1941 AT EF4A09

No one seem interested in this yet Microsoft says all drivers MUST pass verification! This is the MAIN HOTAS DRIVER FOLKS. I am getting lockups and I want to know if this error is causing uSB problems. I have e-mailed Thrustmaster (no reply). Everyone else tells me to reloas Windows blah blah.

Is this driver porked or not?

"Windows 2000 Driver Verifier

By Mark Russinovich of Systems Internals http://www.sysinternals.com

Windows 2000 is introducing a very powerful device-driver development aid called Driver Verifier. This tool works with code in the kernel to gain control of your driver and exercise it for adherence to kernel-mode rules in a way that was not previously before possible. Buggy device drivers are by far the most significant contribution to the reputation among many people that NT is an unstable operating system, and this tool is aimed at repairing that reputation by helping driver writers find their bugs before users do.

"Several types of subtle problems can make it through casual driver testing (the most common type of testing performed under tight time-to-market constraints), and even slip through serious stress tests. One type of common driver problem is a driver accessing paged memory at "elevated IRQL" (high interrupt priority). If the memory the driver accesses happens to be physically present at the time of the access (it hasn't been paged out to the paging file), then the illegal access will go unnoticed. Release a driver that violates this rule out into the wild-world-of-users and its bound to show up, resulting in a Blue Screen crash.

Another type of common driver programming error is for a developer to write the code with the assumption that paged and/or non-paged memory will always be available i.e. they don't check the return values for allocations. If pool runs out and the driver receives a NULL buffer address the driver merrily de-references the system into a Blue Screen. Although pool exhaustion is a rare occurrence, it's not something that should give a System Administrator a Blue Screen. A related memory bug is a buffer overrun or under-run, where a driver reads or writes outside of a buffer it has allocated."

Verifier also in XP

[FOGOLD]

Trying 1.04 drivers. If that doesn't work Cougar is going in the skip.

[CavemanJ]

Originally posted by FOGOLD
Trying 1.04 drivers. If that doesn't work Cougar is going in the skip.

whadda ya mean 'going in the skip?'

Thanks for that tidbit too, since I'm thinkin I'm gonna order a cougar in the next day or three.

[FOGOLD]

Now the error is "STDRIVER>SYS".  I wish Cougar World BBS would reply either confirming or denying my suspicions about this.

Going out to buy a regular USB stick and see of it stops the locks.

[Reschke]

Fogold,

That is something I have not seen in dealing with the Cougar for nearly a year. When you installed the Cougar did you have any error's? Did you get the E901 or E900 error's about the Cougar not being connected? How long have you had the Cougar working and was it working fine then just started going out on you? Lastly did you install any other hardware or software after installing the Cougar? I am asking that part because I think that my issues with the newest software for it 2.02/2.03 is related to me installing SP1 for WinXP then trying to install the new software. When I go to install the new versions they will install correctly but I am unable to load the driver for the Cougar. XP tells me that it can not locate the correct .inf file to run the devices and I don't get an option to select them at all. I have not heard back from TM Support either and it has been several weeks since I last contacted them.

[FOGOLD]

I have had no problems with the Cougar superficially, it all installed fine and no conflicts. BUT , when I think back to changing from MS Sidewinder to Cougar last June, I think the lockup problems started then.

The only way XP throws a problem is if you run "verifier"from the command line, you get a blue screen with the above message. You reboot into safe mode, run verifier again and delete the existing settings.

There's something fishy.

Anyhow. I have just bought  a Thrustmaster Top Gun Afterburner 2 for £30 and will try it for a week. If I still get lockups I'll know I'm off the track and will reinstall windows and forgive the Cougar.

I must confess, I think the Cougar is overcomplex and overpriced for what is essentially a game, and all that modding and new gimbals and such is just lunacy.

Of course, you would think othewr people would be suffering, but the hard lockups are so random and intermittent a lot of people might just shrug and say that's life (like discoes and CTD). But I cant stand being an hour into a TOD and having a lockup.

[SOB]

Not sure if it is relevant or not, but I haven't had any blue screens in the time I've had my Cougar with Win2k.  All original drivers off of the CD.


SOB

[Mini D]

I'm running XP and have not had a lockup yet with a Cougar installed since they were released.

MiniD

[DonULFonso]

Well, I as well never had a BSOD caused by the Cougar,
but all sorts of other problems,
such as random and even frequent dis-connects / drop-outs,
corrupted (no message but no response until after re-flashing)
and even vanishing (all of a sudden the compiler complains) flash,  
and all sorts of driver-issues that made me turn off this XP-service...

[rant]
As for TM and what they might / can / will do...
well, since they themselves love to link to CW
whenever you report something or ask for help or info
in their "official but not meant to give support" forum (their words, not mine),
I should have thought that they at least monitor CW's forums to stay informed -
unfortunately, I've just been told by James himself that this is not the case,
so that TM actually doesn't have the slightest idea that there might be e.g. some disconnection-problem etc. ...

That's no joke (unfortunately) but real life comedy (but not funny at all),
but since the main problem is to get Mark and David to work on reported issues
this means that whatever issue must be officially known to TM
(yep, the rest of the world doesn't matter, it's that easy)
so that the bosses can decide to spend some time on it (or not)...

So, James advised me to contact TM,
which could be funny since their official forum is almost as helpful as Windows' recycle-bin
(and twice as dead, since only those poor souls who don't find an answer here go there),
and it always takes a lot of time and even more luck to get a reply there -
which is more than you usually get when you send 'em an e-mail
(their e-mail address seems to be a direct link into their recycle-bin )...

To cut it short:
I don't have the slightest idea what might cause these problems -
after all, it could as well be MS' fault (like this DX8.1 on non-XP system thingie) -
but I can't help the feeling that TM won't do much to solve 'em...
[/rant]

I still hope that they work on solving the current problems,
but I guess I needn't point out that without any sign o' life - let alone progress! -
it's rather hard to swallow the situation "as is" and the obvious - and valid, IMHO - comments!

(Maybe they should make the firmware open source ,
hoping that some users might do their work
just like they did - and still do - with the hardware -
on the other hand, the to be expected prices sure would suck ...

Hehe - some fine day maybe some proud owner of such a million dollar kitten
might wonder what it would be like to actually program it -
just to find out that this is almost impossible 'cause nobody cared
when it would have been the time to care 'bout the soft- and firmware :
lemme tell ya that nobody of the Cougar-crew is currently working on the Cougar at all -
take my word 'cause they told me !)

[Reschke]

Originally posted by DonULFonso
lemme tell ya that nobody of the Cougar-crew is currently working on the Cougar at all -
take my word 'cause they told me !)

That is a sad, sad, sad statement right there Don. Dream Mode OnI guess I should have known even though I still have faith that someday one of the big suits will wake up and realize how much they have screwed up. Dream Mode Off

[SOB]

They actually made this beast.  That alone is a jaw dropping accomplishment.  I wouldn't have thought they'd ever care to attempt it.


SOB

[FOGOLD]

Its only an accomplishment if it hasn't got buggy drivers.

[DonULFonso]

Well, I for one can life with the Cougar's hardware's design-flaws:
it's not perfect and could have been designed better in several ways,
but I wouldn't exaggerate and call it complete crap -
but I sure cannot live without working drivers and firmware!

I think we all agree that we've seen an amazing support until now,
what with many issues being fixed shortly after they've been reported on CW,
and I for one wouldn't have expected them to really increase the no. of flags,
so that has been really good news and good service as well
(while the "new" THR_RANGE simply was adding a necessary feature
they had forgottten in the first place IMHO) -

however, the Cougar's available since more than a year now,
and I doubt that you really can expect 'em to work on it forever -
remember that Guillemot did and still do everything they can to make it a failure:
no support (talking 'bout TM, not CW, mind!),
no news (if you don't state anything you don't have to deny it later),
a batch that by far exceeds all original expectations
but still isn't enough to serve all orders (yep, people still are ordering!), etc.!

They intended to profit of the Cougar's name and reputation
to sell their middle-class Top Guns joysticks -
a fact - not a rumour - pointed out from the start and never denied!

Be it as it is, I sure could imagine that they won't allow Mark and David
to continue their - necessary, mind! - work on the Cougar's soft- and firmware forever -
after all, they wanna make money (perfectly valid for a company)
and the Cougar had been said to be a loss-leader from the start
(THX to Guillemot's initial and continued lack of support, but anyway),
and Guillemot stripped down TM's size by 50% -
think about it:
how long do you think will they allow their (left over) employees
to continue their work on a finished - in Guillemot's eyes - product?!

When they'll have modded their kittens' hardware ad nauseum
and the last gimbal is mounted, the last spring softened,
the last detent flatened, the last hall-sensor soldered,
the last speedbrake rotated and the last dogfight switch realigned,
then they'll find out that their soft- and firmware still are buggy
and that they can't fully and properly use these fine pieces of craftmanship...

I've posted my concerns on TM's "technical issues"-forum,
and the moderator replied he'd talk to Mark and David and see what to do then -
I'm really curious ...

[maddog]

Their French....... as far as the Cougor... they have surrendered already.....

[FOGOLD]

Think I'm getting this tracked to a definite USB/Cougar problem in my VIA mobo. Tried a cheapo stick, ran all last night on offline sitting on RW. Still purring away this morning.
Cougar drivers and Cougar on board the thing would have locked solid 10 mins to 3 hours in!

A powered USB hub looks in order here!

Will fly with Top Gun Afterburner this week see what happens, but I'm really hoping I cracked it.