Sunday, February 13, 2011

My TrackIR 4 is Dead! Long Live my TrackIR 5!

What a week, folks!

Work was insufferable. My old Windows XP machine stopped booting up after I tried to install something. My TrackIR 4 died. When it rains, it pours.

The show must go on, though. I finally pulled out that mega order at work, I re-installed XP at the missbehaved machine (still have to un-license and reinstall some games) and got myself a TrackIR 5.

TrackIR 5 is noticeable better than TrackIR 4 in terms of response and accuracy. Yet I don't recommend upgrading if your TrackIR 4 is still working fine.

What went wrong with my TrackIR 4? I will never now. I noticed it not responding very well two weeks ago. Maybe I should have un-plugged it while I was not using it (sometimes I stay for hours in the computer and I wonder if these things overheat).

Wanna hear something good about a games company?

GoGamer.com! I ordered my TrackIR5 early on Monday 7th. Their website said it was available and that would ship withing 24 hours. I payed for a FedEx 2 day shipping. During the afternoon of Tuesday 8th, I write an e-mail to them asking why my order has not shipped (order status in their website was "processing") and they answered something like "yeah, yeah, it will ship today". Late Tuesday 8th, the order is still listed "processing" and I have no hopes of this thing getting in a long time. Wednesday 9th in the afternoon I get an e-mail telling me that the order has shipped. I track the package at FedEx and I found out the package was already delivered that morning! Meh! These GoGamer guys are men of action and not paper-pushers. They charged my credit card just today, almost a week later. Odd. But my TrackIR 5 was here just in the promised time span.

Cheers,

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I doubt it's an overheating problem. I never turn off my computer, so my TrackIR 4 has been on for years, and it still works fine.

Also, I live in a tropical climate, and the room where the computer is tends to be quite hot most of the time (around 27 C).

JC said...

I wonder what it was then. It was a very wonky before its death.

Cheers,