Stay away for RWII!!!

A

aad894

New member
After 2 days with my Remote wonder II, I really regret selling the RWI. (Damn was I stupid!)
(I apologize for my bad english)

I thought RWII was supposed to be an upgrade; more like a downgrade.

My RWI was working very well, I got almost 30 ft across the house with no problem.

Nothing in my system was changed, no new appliances were bought for the house. I then install RWII ...

Actual range of the RWII in my room 4 ft!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I installed the drivers from the cd first (I did remove anything ATI in my system before reinstalling drivers, mmc and remote software.) Then I plugged the remote. Windows detected the remote and asked for the drivers, no problem there. Tried the remote, nothing, light was flickering on the remote (So it's working), light is working on the base. I finally tried to get nearer the base, then it worked.
So I thought that maybe I have a radio interference problem somewhere ...
Here what I tried:
1) Checked batteries in the remote, they are correctly oriented (I will try will other batteries tomorrow) NOTHING
2) Tried on every usb port I have (4 on the rear, 2 on the front and 4 on my powered usb hub) NOTHING
3) Disconnected every usb appliances I have NOTHING
4) Disconnected power and connection to speakers NOTHING
5) Disconnected my LAN NOTHING
6) Disconnected my burner, then my dvd reader NOTHING
7) Enabled spread spectrum for AGP and FSB in the bios NOTHING
8) Disabled the onboard sound NOTHING
9) I do have an surge protector that filter incoming power.
10) Disabled every phone handset in the house NOTHING


So my guess was that the unit I got is DOA, but I think I'm not the only one with problems. So maybe it's a design issue. Or a drivers one (althout the remote is working at 3 ft)?

I get 1 ft more when the remote is in vertical position, maybe an antenna problem in the remote?

Anyone I have ideas? I sold my RWI when my credit card was charged, can't get the RW1 back.

I hope for ATI that they never Sell those thing because they will lose a lot of credibility, customer and money in the end.

Putting this thread in the all-in-wonder instead of the remote section might get more feedback, and warn people.

I will email ATI, hope I will get a real answer, not a computer one.
---------------------------
AMD AThlon XP 2200
Asus A7N8X rev 2.0 (non deluxe) with latest bios
1 gig ram Dual Channel
Use onboard sound
AIW 9600 PRO
 
this is kinda stating the obvious, but have you tried changing the position of the reciever?? i've finally got my rwii and it took me a while to find the best place to put it (which turned out to be different from where i had the rwi receiver)--meant the difference between barely being able to use it from within the same room to being able to use it from the other side of the house. others have said they've had good results mounting the thing high up on a wall or in a corner. maybe consider getting a usb ext cord so you can place it farther away.
 
When I plug it in the usb hub, I'm at 1.5m from my computer case.

Perhaps the interference come in the usb cable itself, in that case the extension won't solve my problem (I don't want to spend more money on this).

I will try it in my friend house, we will see if it work there.

Thanks for your help Ciera!
 
I had the same experience as aad894. I say "had" because I already sold my RW2 on ebay. Luckily for me I still have my RW1.

As far as my expierences with the RW2, I fooled around with the hub, using a 3 foot usb extension, and moving it to different parts of the room. Inside the room where the computer is, my office, I was able to get good reception. In the next room, about 8 feet away with one wall inbetween, reception was still good, I would say about 90% accurate.

Now working between 2 walls and around 12 feet away, is my bedroom. Reception was awful. I actually had to tilt the remote in a certain direction and angle to finally get a response. I have a monitor in my bedroom so I can immediately see any response from a button press or mouse movement.

All the moving and extending of the hub did nothing. With my RW1 I have around 99% accuracy at all times from my bedroom. No new appliances, nothing. If you ask me, ATI's attempt to increase the frequency and range of this product is a bomb. If you plan on working this remote from another room more than 15 feet away, beware. I'm not saying it won't work perfectly, but so far the RW1 is a less troublesome product.

wd
 
Wow im completely the opposite.

my RW was pathetic. It worked, but i had to point the remote AT the receiver (which was sitting on top of my case, under the keyboard, on the floor).
I even had to make sure there was nothing blocking the signal to the receiver.....(i practically had an effective range of several centimeters which had to be unobstructed).

When i got my RW2 i installed it and now i actually HAVE range. I can point it at my monitor and it would respond (the receiver, a little longer but still fairly short sits behind my monitor on the desk)

Im a happy camper. This remote looks cooler :)
 
I've had mine for a few weeks, and also had problems installing. It turned out that I had to install separately from the install CD. When I installed the software, i deselected remote wonder, then installed it separately later, rebooted, plugged it in, booted up, and it found it fine and worked.
As far as range, I used an extension, and it actually got worse. My RWI was better the farter away I put it, but with the RWII, I finally just plugged it in and set it on my desk above my PC and it works pretty well. The only odd thing I found is that it won't send a signal through my chair. If the chair is directly between the remote and receiver, it won't work. Other than that, it has pretty good range, and the new features(including the upcoming IR Blaster) make it worthwhile. I love the AUX buttons, they allow controls for Windows Media or Winamp while in full screen games, the RWI did this, but it took a lot more setup than the RWII did.
 
RWII is very picky about USB power.

RWII is very picky about USB power.

I had a similar problem with my RW II, it would suddenly stop working unless the remote was touching the base. I found if I unplugged my MS optical mouse, it worked better. Plug the mouse back in, range disappears. My RW II was on the unpowered USB hub of my keyboard, but plugging it directly into the motherboard didn't help. Nor did removing all other USB devices. I got a powered hub with a beefy AC adapter (Belkin, FYI), and now it gets the 60 foot range it's supposed to have. :D

I think the RW II needs more juice than some motherboards will provide per port, or there's some kind of issue with USB 2.0 ports, but it's definitely a power supply issue.

By the way, has anyone else noticed that with RW software v. 2.3.0.1, you have to be sure to kill ATIRW.EXE before you unplug the RW II receiver? If you don't, the system gets stuck and it will not notice if ANY USB devices are plugged in until you reboot! :p WinXP won't shutdown when this happens, you have to reset. That's Jungo WinDriver's fault. I've seen it happen on other products. What a crappy driver SDK.
 
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