Crazy story

So a few days ago I built a pair of computers for someone, work computers. I didnt exactly go all out on them in hardware since that wasnt needed. But one of them got a 240GB solid state drive which is pretty nice. Most work computers arent that high end but the person wanted it to be "really fast" and since the intel SSD's are both really fast and really stable, I chose to put one of those in. The other one needed to go with a hard drive because it is both a work and personal computer out of a home office. So it would need more space for family pictures and stuff. The other hardware is 16GB of DDR-1600 memory since that is so cheap right now, and an AMD A8-5600K processor because it is a good balance of performance and energy use and saves on buying a graphics card. Anyway, moving on to the story. I spent 3 days stability testing the computers. I used Memtest86+, Prime95 small, large, and blend tests, I.B.T., 3DMark 11, and Unigine Heaven. All parts checked out after the 3 day with no errors on anything. I give the computers to the person and he proceeds to install his Quickbooks on both and some other mechanic software on just one of them.

I hear back 2 days later that one of the computers has a problem, it wont shut down. I think: "huh, thats weird". And just tell him to use sleep mode instead. I hear back the next day that when it gets put to sleep the computer wont wake back up and has to be turned off by the power switch and then back on to use it again. Well thats sort of crazy. Obviously the problem has to come from whatever software was installed by him after it left my hands. But I decide to be nice and go down to fix the thing on my own time because it had a problem so soon after it was purchased.

So I get down to the shop and look around at the software installed, I see one program in the "add/remove programs" that has no information on it at all except an installation date of the day the problem started. Seems a likely culprit. So I make a system restore point and go to uninstall that software. I shut down and realize "oh ya, it doesnt shut down". So I power off the computer and turn it back on, the computer bluescreens. Well shit. But at least I found the problem right? Oddly enough though, the bluescreen mentioned an IRQ error, which is normally hardware... But it didnt have this IRQ problem before or ever and uninstalling the software caused this issue. So I think, "well whatever Ill just see if I can fix this". I boot into safe mode and it boots fine, I restore the Windows restore point and then the computer boots fine again now. No more IRQ error bluescreen. Seems odd to me that a piece of software could cause a hardware style error in Windows.

I do a little bit of digging and find out that this mystery program is actually their mechanic software, so it is required to run their business. I do some more digging and find that it is supposed to be fully compatible with Windows 7 and tech support is absolutely no help since "an IRQ error is a hardware issue and we dont do tech support for your computer". Fair enough, but very odd that their software seems to cause this error when I try to remove it and reinstalling the software fixes the IRQ bluescreen. I uninstalled and reinstalled the software a couple other times to verify its behavior and the bluescreen happened each time I did an uninstall. I decide there is nothing more I can do for it at that location and offer to take it back to my place and wipe it completely clean on a new Windows install and do more testing. So thats what I do.

Now, I get home and what do I find? The computer works perfect. No shutdown issues, no restart issues, no bluescreen issues, nothing. All is perfect. WTF?? I then get to thinking, "well, what changed between there and here?" The only thing that is different now between locations are the mouse, keyboard, and monitor. Could it be? A mouse or keyboard causing an IRQ driver conflict and creating a problem with the system? Sure enough, that is what the problem is. A mouse. I have never in my life seen a mouse that works perfectly fine in Windows and has no issues in its performance or functionality to cause such a strange problem in the Windows OS upon shutdown. yet sure enough, a stupid mouse is causing all this trouble.

Has anyone else ever seen such a problem?

 

That would at least make sense to me that an older mouse or keyboard could have an issue in an OS designed many, many years later with a completely different base to the OS. The weird part here is that both peripherals are only 4-5 years old (Win 7 was already out by then) and had been used perfectly in their last computer which ran Vista. Windows 7 has the same base to it from Vista, so really it shouldn't be THAT different. Im just at a loss for how the hardware can run perfect while in use and yet have such a bad compatibility problem. So I guess there may actually be some truth to those companies (Microsoft and Logitech) that release a new mouse at the same time as the new Windows OS release, that has the same specs and a model number just incremented by 1 and the only change is a new sticker that says "Compatible with Windows #". Who knew that every once in a while it really isnt just complete marketing BS.