RutSum

How I Saved My Logitech x210 2.1 Speakers From An Untimely Death

I have a pretty cramped workstation, and a part of that workstation is my Logitech x210 2.1 speaker system. Its been around an year since I bought them, and for the past 2 months, they have been dying on me.

The first problem that showed up was crackling sounds when I used the in-line volume control (wheel-style). I thought this was bound to happen over time, and ignored it as it wasn’t much of a problem at all. But soon the problem deteriorated. The right satellite stopped working. It would get working if I banged on the volume control for a while. Then the problem creeped into the left satellite too. The root of all the problems was inside the volume control. So I decided to open it up.

That was mistake number one. I fiddled around with the chip inside it, and managed to get both the satellites working, albiet temporarily. That was primarily because I had no idea what I was looking for, or what I was going to do inside the volume control box when I opened it. I just fiddled around with my screwdriver, and things magically worked, for a while.

After a month of using it like this, they became almost completely useless. The volume control, the satellites, everything apart from the subwoofer got bricked.

This is when I decided to take it to the service center and get it fixed. Tragedy starts here. Now I swear that I’m obsessive when it comes to organizing stuff and keeping things in their proper place, and I have a pretty neatly organized box of bills and invoices stacked in my cupboard. But this time, I just couldn’t find the bill for my speaker system.

I ignored this as a trivial problem, because most service centers usually use the serial number to check the validity of the warranty of a product, and won’t ask for the bill unless absolutely necessary. Of course I was wrong. I spent a good 50 minutes arguing with them about the date of purchase of my system, about how I had lost my bill. They also gave me heat about the fact that the screws below the volume control box proved that it was opened, which effectively voided my warranty. I tried everything to convince them, but the buggers wouldn’t listen. My travel to Nehru Place (which is like 30 km from my place) was futile.

So I came back home and was sulking at the failure of my day when I decided that this of course wouldn’t be the end of the journey for my speakers. I decided I could fix them myself.

All I did was one simple fucking Google search. Seriously. I reached this page at the Head-Fi community, which was about the problem of a crackling inline volume control on headphones. Somebody mentioned that moving the wheel back and forth rapidly a few times should help, because it dislodges the oxidized material. And that is all did. Zip-zap, zum-zam, shake shake. And yes, it was like voila.

Since yesterday, its been nothing but music to my ears. I did a quick bow to the Internet gods, and found new meaning in life. Its the happiest I’ve been since I had those amazing donuts at MOD, GIP Noida.

UPDATE : Oops. The fix was only temporary.

Buffalo WLI-UC-GN Wireless USB Adapter is a disappointment

If you play multiplayer games online, you would know how important it is to have a good internet connection with good line stats. The SNR margin on my Airtel connection went real bad recently, I tried everything I could, but couldn’t get it back up. Had the whole wiring to my apartment changed, but the problem seemed to be with the internal telephone wiring. In the end, I was forced to place my Linksys wireless gateway in the living room, along with the landline. This meant that my sister’s connection, which was earlier a wired one through that gateway, was gone. I went to Nehru Place and got this Buffalo Wireless-N Nfiniti Ultra Compact USB 2.0 Adapter.

To say that setting up the drivers for this was a pain in the ass would be an understatement. After several hours of searching online forums about conflicting drivers and the WZC service I finally managed to get this adapter working.

And the reception sucked. Seriously. I kept my MacBook at the same place as this adapter and I was getting a 5/5 signal, while the adapter was able to get only 35% strength of the signal. Constant dropping of the signal, hiccups while streaming, packet loss, and high pings.

Then I tried using a USB extension wire. I plugged in the USB extension and hung the adapter from a bedside lamp. The signal reception got better, but the packet loss and latency didn’t. Tried different orientations, different USB ports, uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers, tried using the bundled software. Nothing worked.

Also, I wasn’t able to create a 802.11n ad-hoc network for local file sharing. The best I could get was 802.11g. There simply was no option to shift to a higher data rate protocol.

So now this adapter sits in my cupboard as a reminder of the bad decision I made to buy a Buffalo product. A little more cash and I could’ve bought a much more reliable Linksys adapter.

Dear Dunkin’ Donuts, A Request From India

I am a 19 year old Indian male who spent 3 years of his life living in the US. I was a pretty small kid, about 5-6 years old, but I can clearly remember the fragrance that would overwhelm me as soon as I stepped into a Dunkin’ Donuts store. I may not remember the names of my favorite donuts, but I do remember that they tasted like heavenly bliss.

You chose to open stores in our neighboring country Pakistan. But you ignored India? May I ask why? How can you possibly think that Pakistani people are bigger fans of your donuts than Indian people? We are the fat ones, with all our people suffering from diabetes and other inflated sugar-level diseases. All Indians have a sweet tooth, you should know that. Especially us North Indians. A meal ain’t complete without dessert. Seriously.

We have your sister here, Baskin Robbins. They’re selling ice-cream like crazy shit here. Fucking everywhere I turn, malls, shopping complexes, they’re everywhere. And they’re good. Nice guys, win ice-cream. So are your donuts.

I want to enjoy your donuts once again. Like I did when I was 5. Please be nice to me and open a few outlets here in India.

P.S. – I live in New Delhi, just in case you read this and decide to open an outlet somewhere in Mumbai or Bangalore. Delhi first, please.

(I wrote this as an email, but couldn’t find an email ID to mail it to, so posted it here.)