# Fuck Service Pack 3! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 11, 2008, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901 "2008-05-11T07:34:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/21 "2008-05-11T15:10:17Z")
[QUOTE=Rhythmdvl] Egad. Could you help us out and link to the site that told you about the Asus conflict? (AMD/M2N4-SLI here). Thanks. [/QUOTE] The link that **Quartz** gave seems pretty much like the one I was looking at. Scroll down to the ‘second issue’ part and it talks about AMD conflicts. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/22 "2008-05-11T15:18:41Z")
It borked my computer, which has an AMD CPU, but isn’t from HP or ASUS. It trashed the filesystems in the process. I had to wipe the disks and reinstall from scratch. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/23 "2008-05-11T15:46:43Z")
I think it’s a marketing ploy. See, if your XP doesn’t work at all, Vista looks . . . well, not so bad. Or maybe not horrible. Or, inevitable. Or something. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/24 "2008-05-11T16:18:51Z")
[QUOTE=put down the sabre] You should use linux. Never had any problems with linux. Why don’t you use linux? [/QUOTE] **put down the sabre** , this is hard to read as anything other than trying to bait someone into an argument, i.e. trolling. This is a warning to knock it off. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/25 "2008-05-11T16:26:46Z")
Um, I read **pdts** ’s post as a joke, not a troll. Is your trigger finger a bit itchy this morning, **Giraffe**? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/26 "2008-05-11T16:28:51Z")
[QUOTE=Darkhold] Err Didn’t read my whole OP did you? No HP here. [/QUOTE] Guilty as charged! Sorry about that. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/27 "2008-05-11T16:56:44Z")
My only problem with SP3 is that I can’t use my custom XP skins anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/28 "2008-05-11T17:02:56Z")
[QUOTE=Digital Stimulus] _Comment made while sitting happily and productively at my Debian-stable box with an Asus A8N32 motherboard…_ [/QUOTE] Re-reading my comment, it came off as much more dickish than I intended. Sorry about that, **Darkhold** , and I’m sorry that you’re having computer issues. More substantively, you asked: > [@](#): > > …what the hell is up with the flash drive making it work? How does that even do anything at boot? According to both your description and the link posted by **Quartz** , there seems to be some issue on the A8N32-SLI with the USB. I don’t have an answer for why it happens – it seems it’ll be posted on this Jesper guy’s blog if and when it’s discovered. However, we know that a system has to check all the USB connections at startup to find/load drivers for the connected plug’n’play devices. My guess is that Asus is returning an unexpected value during that check – it could be any number of things (note: made up examples follow), something like a “-1” rather than a “0” if no devices are found. Or, it could be that the timing involved is off – for instance, finding a USB mouse causes an immediate attempt to load the driver, even though the USB subsystem isn’t fully initialized. Or, since it seems to be ACPI related, it could be something as obscure as a sleep/hibernate issue. Having one device connected that successfully initalizes might be enough to avoid the issue. Combined with the Windows setting “Reboot on load failure”, you’d get the problems described. As I said, I don’t have an answer. I’d be very interested in knowing exactly what the problem is…but I suspect it’s Asus’s fault. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/29 "2008-05-11T17:10:04Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] Um, I read **pdts** ’s post as a joke, not a troll. Is your trigger finger a bit itchy this morning, **Giraffe**? [/QUOTE] No, I’m pretty sure jokes are supposed to be funny. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/30 "2008-05-11T17:10:40Z")
[QUOTE=Giraffe] **put down the sabre** , this is hard to read as anything other than trying to bait someone into an argument, i.e. trolling. This is a warning to knock it off. [/QUOTE] If my .02 means anything I read it as a joke as well. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/31 "2008-05-11T17:15:27Z")
[QUOTE=Darkhold] It’s a fairly decent fairly common motherboard from an extremely popular motherboard maker. I realize they can’t test for all configurations but how do they screw up so badly that safe-mode doesn’t even work? I’m far from a tech wiz but I have to ask what the hell is up with the flash drive making it work? How does that even do anything at boot? Well I guess I shouldn’t question it too much it at least fucking works.. [/QUOTE] Flash drives may be allowing you to sidestep an error involving booting to USB. I am not a BIOS programmer (do we have one of those here) but motherboards are very complex devices. Although common I am hardly shocked that they missed one series of boards. Also the A8n series has a long line of boards going back around 5 years or so now…An A8N of 5 years ago may have problems a newer A8N board may not suffer from ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/32 "2008-05-11T17:22:51Z")
[QUOTE=Giraffe] No, I’m pretty sure jokes are supposed to be funny. [/QUOTE] In which case, a lot of us are in trouble. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/33 "2008-05-11T19:02:04Z")
Sorry for your computer troubles. It’s got to be one of the most frustrating things in the world. But… …since I’m not the first person: Damn am I glad I finally switched to Mac. \Know what else rocks about Mac? When it detects the rare update that requires rebooting, it asks: Would you like to install and reboot now? And if you click no, it _stops asking you_. No more of that every 90 seconds crap.\ ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/34 "2008-05-11T19:09:50Z")
[QUOTE=NinjaChick] \Know what else rocks about Mac? When it detects the rare update that requires rebooting, it asks: Would you like to install and reboot now? And if you click no, it _stops asking you_. No more of that every 90 seconds crap.\ [/QUOTE] I sometimes wonder whether some people who switch to Mac and get all smug about how great it is just didn’t know how to use Windows, because this is yet another example of a Mac “benefit” that can easily be applied to Windows. All it requires is clicking a single button to set Automatic Updates to “Notify me but don’t automatically download or install them.” That way, when updates are detected, Windows asks if you want to download them, and only downloads the ones you select. The details for each update also tell you which ones may require restarting your computer. Furthermore, if you deselect one of the updates, Windows also gives you an option that says “Don’t warn me again about this update.” ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/35 "2008-05-11T20:06:17Z")
[QUOTE=Amp] Yeah, I usually wait a month after a service pack is released before I download it. If the buzz is positive by then I figure it shouldn’t brick my system. [/QUOTE] Exactly, **Darkhold** has learned the hard lesson of, **The 3 Laws of Microsoft Operating Systems** 1 Don’t adopt a new Windows operating system until at least service pack 2. 1a\* The only good, stable, Window OS is one that Microsoft no longer supports. 2 Don’t install service pack #X until after the service pack #X bug fixes are all released 2a\* You’ll know this has happened when they roll out service pack #Y. 3 Fuck you Bill Gates. 3a\* Hi Vista!CMC +fnord! - See they can’t even get the three laws right! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/36 "2008-05-11T20:07:58Z")
[QUOTE=Darkhold] Sure you meet me there…While I go to your home with my chainsaw. 😛 [/QUOTE] Ok, but I’ll have my Macbook Pro with me at the Thunderdome. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/37 "2008-05-11T20:31:05Z")
[QUOTE=put down the sabre] You should use linux. Never had any problems with linux. Why don’t you use linux? [/QUOTE] Yeah, my ass. I switched to Linux after getting fed up with Windows XP. I cannot get a reliable internet connection despite having one of the most compatible wireless dongles available. Firefox routinely crashes the GUI. PDFs routinely crash the GUI. I’ve had to restart Linux more often than I ever did XP. Right now I’m typing this on my Win2k laptop because I’m afeared to use the Linux box for general work. So no, you’re not the only one with computer issues this weekend, **Darkhold**. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/38 "2008-05-11T20:40:09Z")
Tried using ndiswrapper and the windows drivers instead? … also, are you sure your ram is okay? That sounds like dodgy ram symptoms to me. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/39 "2008-05-11T20:50:21Z")
[QUOTE=Giraffe] No, I’m pretty sure jokes are supposed to be funny. [/QUOTE] I laughed. Do jokes have to pass a moderator quality control test? ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901/40 "2008-05-11T22:07:15Z")
[QUOTE=Darkhold] If my .02 means anything I read it as a joke as well. [/QUOTE] Fair enough. I’ll concede that I could have simply misread his post. Unless there are instance of trolling or borderline trolling in the near future, I’ll assume I was wrong and retract the warning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-service-pack-3/448901.md?page=3)