Thread: Griffen Powermate Issues - Nice.. But.....

I must disagree.

I've got two Powermates, silver and black . I got both of them in July/June. One I bought from Thinkgeek and the other I got for finding a bug in their drivers (I’ve reported on it here before).

Both work fine when plugged in from boot, with and without a hub.

During POST, both will pulse twice and then go dark for the rest of boot. Once NTLDR is finished and XP is loading, The powermates LED goes on and stays on.

It works fine once the desktop comes up.

The issue here is Drivers. Griffin is indeed a company that makes hardware for Macs. As such, their windows drivers and software leave much to be desired (desires I've had since June).

If your drivers are not properly installed, stuff stops working, and it's very easy to not install them right. Each USB port you use it on you have to go in and manually install the drivers.

There are some hardware differences between the black and silver powermate, The PCB's are different, and I've also heard rumors that the black are less sensitive. I have not seen this myself, so I can only assume they had not checked to see what the sensitivity level was set at.

I really don't think that the Powermates have different firmware. The sticker was probably just there because they used a different batch of PROM’s.

I have tested this on win2k and win XP pro with identical results. I have not tried with win98 (No 98 box to try it on).

Also, There was no need to state all that in so many posts, Just edit your previous ones if you have to add something.

I'm keeping with my original idea.

The powermate I got today is different from my friends black one and doesn't have problems.

I'm making a observation. And posting results. These are not lies...

I don't need to post a boot up video do I? COmon now, I'm the one that got the 15 foot IDE's working. And people doubted me then. Fluffy are you doubting me? You must have a reason to not believe what I have found.

Anyone have any new information on the problems?

I've got my silver power mate and it's no longer responding. It was working, although I noticed a couple of times (I think after hibernation) it stopped. And now it's not been working through several reboots and a shutdown. Weird. I don't know if it's going to come back. Hope so. I'll try the drivers I just downloaded, but I don't know if that's the same version I already installed from the install CD.

It is connected to an unpowered hub, someone mentioned that the tech support guys said that could have an impact. But, I think they might have just been fishing for possible solutions, rather identifying a real problem.

Quincy

Have you looked in Device Manager to see if it identifies it as a HID or a Griffen?

BTW, my friend bought a Silver one after I tested it all out...

I kept his old black one which I use on my HomePC, the black one I use at home sometimes just starts to not work, it starts to pulsate for no reason, and I have to uplug it and then plug it back in.

The Silver newer one in my car and my friends car work perfect.

I think I figured out what might have happened. As people suggested, I unplugged the USB cable, replugged it, and all was well again. So, apparently since the OPUS does supply standby current or whatever it does, that was enough to keep the powermate in whatever bad state it was in. Since then I haven't had trouble, even through restores from hibernation. The one time it failed was (I think) a time I tried to use "stand by" instead of hibernation on power off. For some reason it rebooted when it should have come out of standby. I have no idea why. Anyway, perhaps that's why the powermate wound up in a weird state.

At any rate, people's advice did work for me about unplugging it, and replugging it. And fortunately it's been working fne through at least 10 hibernations. (And it is connected through an unpowered hub.)

quincy

I was looking at getting a powermate to add into my dash I am working on. My questions to you guys is:

1. Are these working better now with the newer griffin drivers under WinXP? (it will be plugged into a USB hub)

2. Any issues with vehicle movements (bumps, turns, braking) causing these devices to click or rotate? Hate to have my audio mute each time I hit a little bump in the road

3. How bright is that LED? Is it going to annoy me driving at night if it's down low in my console? Can I dim it even by just adding some tape or tinting/painting the ring or something?

TIA.

1. Are there new drivers? I use mine for volume and mute and it works perfect.

2. No bumps will affect it, my STi has a stiff suspension and I have no issues.

3. The LED is bright on full volume but if places low like mine by the shifter you should not have a problem at all.

There are no New drivers. I was told last June that there would be new drivers out in a month or so. So perhaps they meant this June.

A guy can dream can't he?

Originally Posted by gadget

I was looking at getting a powermate to add into my dash I am working on. My questions to you guys is:

1. Are these working better now with the newer griffin drivers under WinXP? (it will be plugged into a USB hub)

2. Any issues with vehicle movements (bumps, turns, braking) causing these devices to click or rotate? Hate to have my audio mute each time I hit a little bump in the road

3. How bright is that LED? Is it going to annoy me driving at night if it's down low in my console? Can I dim it even by just adding some tape or tinting/painting the ring or something?

TIA.

Regarding your third question, the software that comes with the powermate allows full control over the LED, you can control the pulse frequency, I believe you can turn it off altogether if you want also