What happened to Logitech Z623 speakers

Remember that I had the Logitech Z623 speaker set when I was in Japan. Do you want to know what happened to them? Its fate was decided the same way I decided the fate of a lot of hardware, whenever I wanted to upgrade: Auction!

Bringing them along with me to Sri Lanka was not feasible for the following reasons.

• It was huge and heavy. There was no way I could have brought it back with me without using sea cargo. We decided not to use sea cargo, because it was cheaper to replace everything with new items than to ship used parts, especially considering the complexities that would arise early this year, which you will learn in the near future I suppose.
• The speakers only supported 100V power from the mains. I could have used a step down transformer, but it is not an elegant solution. It adds more cost.
• It has that issue with the power button. The culprit appears to be the inconsistent contact between the leads in the power switch. Sadly, access to the power switch is difficult, but I am sure I would be able to fix it with the help of my dad. Still, there was a little doubt that it would completely resolve the issue.
• This was I get to try out something new in the coming months. I hate rotting with the same gear for too long. This was that opportunity to upgrade.

I had it listed up on

Rakuten Auction for a while, but nobody wanted to buy it.Perhaps, Japanese people are more interested in smaller, Japanese made speakers. So I had to drop the price all the way down to JPY 2,500 but I made the buyer pay for shipping. Finally someone placed a bit. I had made up my mind to give it away to a friend, if nobody wanted to bid for it. Luckily, I didn't have to go there.

The sad thing is though, the speakers are very good and strong. And it would cost a fortune to own those speakers in Sri Lanka. In fact, the prices of it in Japan has also gone up by 50% or so since I bought it. It could be due to the drop of value of Japanese currency, but it is quite an old product. I had it for 3 years too.

Logitech (Logicool) Z623's power button is unstable again

 

When my Corsair SP2200 speakers developed a crackling sound, I returned them for a full refund and bought the popular Logitech Z623 speaker set. Within the 2 year warranty period ran out, a problem developed in those speakers as well. The speakers would not keep turned on for a moment after pressing the power button. I would have to turn it off and turn it back on several times until the power button "sticks". Logitech (known as Logicool in Japan) replaced the speakers with a brand new set. 

They worked find for a while but after the warranty expired (I did not get an extension of warranty with the replacement; the warranty period was same as the original), they also started showing the exact same problem with the power button. The following video demonstrates the issue with the current speaker set.

This is not an isolated problem. There are reports from many people about the same issue on the Internet. It appears that the dust which gets trapped between the contact points of the power button is the cause of this issue. Some, who have been brave enough to open up the speakers to perform a clean up say that it fixed the problem for them.

Logitech Gaming Software startup bug

I have been a Logitech user for many years. The first Logitech component I bought was a headset which was really bad. Then I bought a G15 keyboard from Saman, which I still use and a G5 mouse from another guy whose name I can't recall. I broke the G5 mouse and bought a G500 - many G500 mice to be precise (check here, here and here). Many broke and the one that I have is working fine except for the wear around the area where you would rest the thumb. After that I bought the G602 mouse, my first ever wireless mouse and I am currently using it in my PC, even for gaming. 

That's a bit of history but it has nothing to do with the issue I'm going to describe. Let us get into the rant then, shall we?

My G15 keyboard needs the Logitech Gaming Software for it to function as intended as it doesn't have any onboard memory to store the profiles or operate the LCD on its own. The G602 can get away with it because it has onboard memory and one profile can be flashed onto it. (Again, just one profile, which is quite limiting.)

With Windows 8.1 (but I can swear that I've had the same experience with Windows 7 and 8 too), when you set it to launch at startup from the software itself , it might not start and load the application in the system tray. If that's all that happens, then I'm fine. But that's not only what happens. We get a huge input lag when this happens. It can be as long as a second for each key press. It's unusable. If you check the Task Manager, you'll be able to find a process created by it called “Logitech Gaming Framework” although it does not show up in the System Tray.

Logitech G602 battery life

My Logitech G602 mouse was delivered to me on April 4, so it is 2 months and a week to-date. So how many times did I have to change the batteries?

Zero times!

The battery life of this “wireless” mouse is downright amazing. I’m still using the original batteries that came bundled with the mouse. According to the Logitech Gaming Software (the screenshot above), there is about half of the battery life still left.

I have to confess though, I didn’t have much time to play games in the past few days. That privilege was available in the weekend, and even then when the baby was sleeping. As a result, the mouse was mostly in the “Endurance” state, not “Performance” state. But still…it’s admirable. I was expecting to change the batteries at least once every two weeks.

[Rant] Looks like the G602 doesn't like the QCK mouse pad as well

Few days ago I posted saying that my new Logitech G602 mouse didn't track well on Razer Sphex mouse pad and that I had to move to the old Steelseries QCK mouse pad. Guess what? The mouse doesn't seem to like it either. Still it was better than the Sphex.

I didn't feel like spending money on a new mouse pad. So threw away both (into the closet, not to the garbage can) and started using the bare wood surface. It seems to work the best. Now that I don't have much time to play games anyways, I might just keep using the mouse this way after all.

On the other hand…

The G602 has an optical sensor, hence the mouse pads made for laser sensor might not work very well with it. I just wish the wooden surface was smoother. Then it would be perfect. It is not that rough – because the mouse has those glide pads, but there is still some resistance. One of the reasons I got this wireless mouse was to reduce the drag caused by the cable, which also counts as resistance. So if I add resistance from the surface, there is not much sense in going with an optical mouse. So if you think about it, I might have to get a mouse pad after all.

[Rant] Logitech G602 tracking on Razer Sphex mouse pad

Remember me buying the Logitech G602  for a crazy low price of just $29? If not, check this article out.

So I've been playing Crysis 3 a bit with this new mouse and I had a problem. It was difficult to aim with the mouse. The accuracy went down the toilet. At first I thought it was because this is a wireless mouse and the input lag is higher than a typical wired gaming mouse. Plus, for some reason I couldn't set the USB polling rate either. It was greyed out in the Logitech Gaming Software user interface.

Edit: After reading a bit, I found out that the USB polling rate of the mouse is 500Hz and it is not changeable. It is higher than most typical mice, where the polling rate is 125Hz, but most wired gaming mice can “boost” it to 1000Hz so there is a 1ms lag caused by the polling rate over my G500.

Yesterday I noticed that the mouse pointer would skip and jump while using the mouse. Skips and jumps are not caused by input lag. They are caused by bad tracking. I was using the Razer Sphex mouse pad with the Logitech G500 and I continued to use it with the G602. I also have a steelseries QCK Mini mouse pad which has a cloth surface, hence the friction is too high and I gave up using it.

[Gadget] My G602 mouse is here

The G602 mouse that I only paid $29 for (OMG!) arrived day before yesterday but I hardly got any chance to play some games with it that day. But last night I did some gaming – like 15 minutes.So let me tell you my initial feelings about it.

There was one major concern. This is a wireless mouse. So input lag will be higher compared to a wired mouse. But I didn’t feel that was the case at all. The mouse was quite responsive. I didn’t feel any lag. Maybe pro gamers can feel the difference. I’m more than a casual gamer and I didn’t feel it was slow. However, I used the “Performance” mode which improves responsiveness sacrificing battery life. (Yet, the mouse supports 250hrs of non-stop gaming battery life).

[Rant] Ordered the Logitech G602 wireless mouse!!!

Few months ago, I wanted to buy the Logitech G602 wireless gaming mouse. This is the best wireless mouse to date, with very little input lag over a wired mouse. But the mouse costs about $70 in Japan. That's still cheaper than the US price which is about $80. However, I also have some points at Sofmap, so I could have bought it at about $15 using all the points. But even then, I felt I could use those points to buy something else - like a graphics card. I still monitored the prices for months from kakaku.com but didn’t see it drop below JPY6,700. So I gave up the idea.

Until today, that is.

I was going to take a shower and I got an email. I checked it from the phone. The email was from kakaku.com . It said that the lowest reported price of the Logitech G602 mouse that I was monitoring has gone down. I thought it would be something like $1 or 2. But no, it was all the way down to $39 (or JPY3,980). No way I was not going to jump on this deal. I quickly went into the website of the store that was selling the mouse to confirm the price. Sometime glitches on kakaku.com can cause these. But this time it was legitimate. I quickly decided to buy the mouse.

[Rant] I wish Logitech would make their mice more durable

I have been using Logitech products for a long time. When I came to Japan, I had a G5 mouse which I broke after a while. I bought a G500 to replace it and it also broke. The middle mouse button stopped working – stopped clicking. This is exactly what happened with the G5 as well. Logicool, which Logitech calls themselves in Japan, replaced it, no questions asked. Then after a while it broke again. This time it was the left mouse button. Everything else worked perfectly. They replaced it again. This time they didn't even ask me to send them back the broken mouse. In the previous occasion they asked me to return the defective mouse. They, of course, sent the new mouse in advance. Funny thing was, the mouse they sent me had a defect as well. The tilt action of the scroll wheel didn’t work properly. I had to ask them to send me back another mouse. Man, this G500 mouse that I'm using is pretty expensive.

Anyways, I've now been using this mouse in the last few months without any hardware issues. But there is one issue. The issue is that the coasting of paint on the mouse where I rest the thumb fades away. Look at the pic below. (Ignore the dust though) This is not something that just happened with this mouse. The previous G500 mice that broke also had this issue.

Is this same with other mice as well? This makes the resale value of the G500 go down the toilet. I mean, the mouse may perform perfectly well but the looks are important. If people see that the mouse is worn out, they will ask to drop the price down. That sucks.

[Rant] How cheap would the G602 get?

Remember a while back I was considering getting a Logitech G602 wireless gaming mouse? I didn't want to get it back then because the prices were a bit too steep. I wanted to play the waiting game. Back then, the price of it was hovering around ¥8,000. I've kept a constant look out for price drops ever since and it is getting cheaper by the day - albeit few ¥ here and there.

Now the price of it is around ¥6,700 (as of 2013-12-06). That's a quite a nice price drop, right? I can get it now or wait for the prices to drop even further. It is just like buying stock. You never know when the prices will go up again. So you will have to make a decision at some point whether to risk waiting further or be happy with the current price and never look back afterwards.

You can take a look at how the prices have changed in the last 3 months by clicking this link.

Hmm.....

Since this is not a much needed upgrade, I've decided to wait. As I'm upgrading the display to a 1440p display (which has already arrived and am playing with it right now), there are more pressing matters like getting a faster graphics card because the GTX670 doesn't quite pull the pixels at the rate that I'm comfortable at. But that upgrade is also put on hold until manufacturers come out with non-reference designs for the R9 290 graphics card and also Mantle performance figures. I might still go with NVidia, but I want more options.

What so you guys think? Will it get cheaper? Or should I get it now?

[Article] Finally we have the perfect wireless mouse - Logitech G602

Wireless keyboards and mice are not on the top of the list in any gamer's buying list, because they don't work well with competitive Multi-player gaming. The biggest issue is the input lag that they produce, but additionally there is the risk of running out of juice (battery I mean) when you are in the middle of a gaming session without even knowing. Hey, who has time to monitor the battery status when you are glued to the screen, right? Besides, frequently needing to charge the wireless products is a pain in the arse. The chances of you forgetting to do it in the night and finding out that you are almost out of juice is common place. 

Looks like wireless input devices are not practical. So why am I even writing this topic? Simply because, THERE ARE advantages of using wireless input devices (not so much with keyboards though). There is no wire drag with wireless mice. Wire drag is where the wire of the mouse gives a resistance against freely moving the mouse because it drags along the surface (i.e. desk). Most mice these days are braided and that adds more resistance. There are products like Roccat Apuri that tries to bring zero drag resistance to wired mice, but not everybody can get one in their country nor have the space on the desk to keep it. But indeed it is a cheaper fix to the solution. 

But if you are a minimalist like me (news flash!), you'd want to go for the real thing. Meaning, a proper wireless mouse. Additionally, it gets you one step closer to getting rid of that wire mess. But does a proper wireless mouse exist? 

The answer is PROBABLY. The Logitech G602 comes almost close to that throne. The biggest difference with this mouse is that it allows you to use the mouse for 250hrs non-stop compared to most gaming wireless mice that need charging everyday. That's a high speed mode which is suitable for gaming. If you put it to endurance mode, which is good enough for everything else, you get over 1000hrs of non-stop battery life! Holy McDonald!The batteries inside the mouse are standard AA sized batteries; not anything proprietory. Looks like you don't get any charging mechanism built in to the mouse. You have to charge your own batteries or put new AA batteries every now and then. Costly, unless you have a few Sanyo Eneloop batteries lying around. I do, because I bought 8 batteries for my old Canon SX1-IS camera. The mouse even works with a single battery, so you don't lose the connection if you change one battery at a time.

 

Just like all other Logitech's modern gaming mice, this also comes with a million buttons that you can assign macros or custom keystrokes which comes real handy in games. I cannot believe how you can play games with a generic 3 button mouse these days. However, when it comes to marketing, the high DPI is not a marketing point with this mouse. The max DPI (or CPI) is limited to 2500, which actually makes sense. Even that is too high. Most people are fine at around 1000 DPI or even less.  Maybe that helps save battery life. (Means, it is a technical compromise). However, the mouse comes with a new sensor, called Delta Zero. Maybe saving battery life is the main feature of it rather than performance.

The wireless link is between a dedicated nano receiver that plugs into your USB port. it operates at 2.4GHz spectrum and the mouse works up to 3m away. That's good enough for me. It's not Bluetooth, so you will have to carry that nano receiver wherever you go. But remember, wireless is still laggier than wired. That cannot be fixed. They can make the difference smaller, but it will always lag behind wired mice. Most people won't notice it, but some gamers might.

The only issue this mouse has is the Logitech's Gaming Software. With version 8.50, they have improved it a lot, but it still misses the active application every now and then and uses wrong settings for the application you want to use. Minimizing the application and bringing it back might work. Or maybe you'll have to open the Gaming Software window from system tray. Worse case would be to kill it from Task Manager and relaunch. But that's a lot of hard work. I also set the default configuration for games. So if I close all the programs running while gaming, I won't have an issue. It's the application switching that doesn't work well.

The suggested price is $80 for the mouse. That is a lot of money for a mouse. I checked the prices in Japan, and the lowest I could find was JPY8,440. That's too much. I hope the prices will drop by my next birthday. 4.5 months to go. :) Maybe this will be my first step towards going wireless.

[Article] I need a mechanical keyboard

I have a Logitech G15 gaming keyboard. That is pretty bad-ass those days, but these days Mechanical Keyboards are the new trend. The G15 uses the cheap rubber switches as most of the keyboards out there. That makes it pretty silent, but not so easy to type on or push keys when gaming.

Mechanical keyboards have mechanical switches for each key. That makes them very loud, but the key travel distance until the key is registered is short and that causes less fatigue when typing and whacking the keys while gaming. There are special switch designs that makes them "feel better" when typing. But most of the times, typist keyboards are not great for gaming and vice versa. Some switch designs makes them require less force to push. But that is not always a good thing, because you cannot rest your hands on the keyboards without pressing the keys. You might need that.

Now, the mechanical keyboards have some shortfalls compared to my G15. The most pronounced thing is that none of the gaming mechanical keyboards don't come with an LCD. In fact, only a select Logitech gaming keyboards come with an LCD. Logitech only has one mechanical keyboard, called the G710+ but that doesn't have an LCD. Most people might think that the LCD is a gimmick. But I use it for monitoring certain things while gaming and stress testing. That is pretty useful because I don't have a secondary monitor. (Maybe I should get a secondary monitor!)

The other shortfall is the noise. Some people, especially typists like the click noise when hitting the keys but when you are gaming, you cannot really hear that noise because you would be wearing a headset anyways. But everyone else in the household will hear it and you will get scolded. I don't have a special computer room in my apartment, so I will have to face the wrath of my wife. But there are some mechanical keyboards that are noticeably quieter than the other mechanical keyboards. The difference is the type of the switches used. Well, the switches used these days in mechanical keyboards are almost always the ones called Cherry MX made by Cherry Corp, but there are different switch types. Cherry MX Black, Brown, Blue, Clear, Red and Green. The Black and Red keys are the gaming friendly type. Blue is the typist friendly type. Brown is in between, but also the quietest. Clear is hardly used in keyboards. Green, I have no idea about. Looks like the Browns are the best option for me. Ironically, most of the high-end gaming keyboards like the Razer's BlackWidow Ultimate or Corsair's K95 all use Cherry MX Blue switches. I don't know why they have gone with those.

So which one should I get? Logitech has great customer support here in Japan and the G710+ is considerably quieter than the rest. But their software is flimsy at times. But since I have a Logitech mouse, I will have to use their software anyways. I would rather use one software than two. But on the other hand, the Logitech keyboard has a Japanese layout. I would prefer to have the more standard US layout. However, Razor also sells the US version here at a slightly higher price so they get points for that. Their BlackWidow Stealth edition also uses Cherry MX Brown switches and is considerably quieter. I would love to try Corsair's Vengeance K95 keyboard, but that is very expensive. I want a keyboard that has macro keys on the left edge like my G15 does. So that lowers my options. I will specifically have to go with a gaming keyboard. There are other brands too, like Thermaltake and Coolermaster that make good mechanical gaming keyboards. If you want typist keyboard, there are even better brands, but unheard of in the gaming arena such as Das, Ducky and Vortex.

I need to look more into what7s available here and choose a nice mechanical keyboard, maybe by my birthday. That's a long way to go though! :(

The 3 Musketeers: G500, G500 and G500!

Finally the replacement for the DOA (dead on arrival) replacement of the left button broken Logitech G500 mouse arrived. I have already sent the DOA mouse back to Logicool as per their request. However they were kind enough to send me the packaging material and the printed recipient address along with the mouse. So all I had to do was put the mouse in the box, paste the address on the box and order Kuroneko courier service to come and take away the package.

The new mouse is working fine. But for some weird reason, the mouse wheel is tilted slightly to the left as well. Very slightly, but it's noticeable to the eye. The feedbacks you get from tilting left and right are not the same either, but that's not a big deal anyways. It would perhaps become seasoned in no time. Heck, I still have more than a year full of warranty left. I can always replace the mouse again if something goes wrong.

The Logitech Gaming Software sucks as usual. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Time to read the threads at Logitech forums or ask my own question. I really wish I could get a mouse with much stable software. But I don't know who makes such mice nor don't wanna change the mouse to a new one, especially in these desperate times. 

 The new one on the left, the DOA one in the middle and the left button broken one on the right.

The replacement G500 mouse is also broken (DOA)???

A week ago, the left button of my Logitech G500 mouse stopped working. Logicool (the name under which Logitech is registered in Japan) replaced the mouse with a brand new one. I got the replacement mouse yesterday and I even wrote a blog post about it because I was so happy that I could replace the worn out old mouse with a new one.

But after using the new mouse for a few minutes, I felt that the left tilt function of the scroll wheel was not working properly. I had to tilt is with all my might to get it to respond. Right tilting was fine. I use the tilt function to switch tabs in the browser and to change firemode/reload in games.

If you look at the photo below, you'll see that the gap between the wall and the scroll wheel is very small on the left side and big on the right side. This is kind similar to what happened with the first time I replaced the mouse about a year and half ago. But at that time, the middle press was entirely not working. But then it was all due to battering the middle button trying throw grenades => the mouse wasn't durable. But this time, it is a DOA. Oh well!!!

I contacted Logicool about this and they agreed to send me a new mouse. But I have to send back the broken one. Not the first one, but the replacement. I hope this will be end of it. I already hate Logicool/Logitech as a brand. :(

Logitech G500 Gaming Mouse–left click not working

Last night, out of the blue, the left click on my mouse stopped working. First I thought it was a problem with the Logitech Gaming Software. Logitech’s software isn’t the best out there. Very unstable, if you ask me. I use LGS to remap the buttons on the mouse to do different things for each of the commonly used applications and sometimes the buttons do not respond. I wonder if the competitors are doing a better job. 

First of all, I quitted LGS and relaunched it. No good. I disconnected the mouse and reconnected to the same port. No good. I connected the mouse to another port. No good. Then I rebooted the PC. No good. I connected the mouse to my MacBook Air. No good. (I even connected it to the office PC. No good.)

Logitech Gaming Software version 8.40 - a unified experience

Finally Logitech has done something logical. I have the G15 Gaming Keyboard and the G500 Gaming Mouse which needed separate software for each - namely the Logitech Gaming Software and Logitech SetPoint. Finally, they have brought them together in the version 8.40 release of Logitech Gaming Software. Happiness! Why they took this long is the question. 

If you had taken a peek at Windows 8's Task Manager's Startup section, both Logitech Gaming Software and Logitech SetPoint were classified as startup apps that take too much time. I wonder if this is still the case with this new Driver/Software. I hope it is better now. 

You can download the Logitech Gaming Software v8.40 from this link. 

From crackling Corsair SP2200 speakers to Logitech (Logicool) Z623 speakers.

In a previous post I was asking which speaker system to get since my old Corsair SP2200 speakers went kaput. After a lot of consideration, I decided to go ahead with Logitech (Logicool in Japan) Z623 speakers.

The decision was mostly based on the warranty support. The last time I dealt with them, it went as smooth as it can get. I broke my G500 mouse and they sent me a replacement even without checking the broken mouse or asking me to send the mouse back to them first. (Of course I had to send them the broken mouse, but shipping was on their account.)

These speakers carry 2 years of warranty and I hope the support if these break down will be of the same quality. (Maybe they won’t break down at all.)That said, these speakers are not shabby at all.

How to install Logitech C910 drivers on Windows 8

Edit: 
Logitech now has Windows 8 drivers for C910 webcam. You don't have to follow the guide any more. You can download the Windows 8 drivers from HERE.

To the original post then...

If you have a Logitech C910 webcam (maybe it applies to other Logitech models as well) and if you are trying out Windows 8, be it Release Preview or RTM, you might be having trouble getting your webcam to work. Logitech does not yet have a driver for Windows 8. (You can check for C910 drivers here.)

Sorry, this software is not compatible with your operating system. Please visit the Logitech website to download a compatible version.

Never fear, there is a workaround. (There always is ;))

Workaround

Go to Logitech website and download the full Windows 7 drivers first. (You can either download the “Full Installer” or the “Smart Installer”. Now you can simply run the installer under Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode. (Windows 7) The drivers will install just fine.

Here is a video if you are unsure about anything.

Logitech Gaming Software crashing ATI driver or vise versa

Since you cannot live without the ATI driver, I blame Logitech for being irresponsible. Their *new* Logitech Gaming Software is so buggy. But I have to have it because I use those special 6 buttons on the left hand corner on my G15 keyboard. Logitech’s hardware is good, and so is ATI’s or Creative’s or many others’. Just that their drivers are so lame. Crashes PCs all the time, and people blame poor Microsoft. (Ok, one – they are not poor, two – they have their own faults too)

One of the main issues I had before this clash with the ATI driver was that it would stop working when I resume the PC from standby. How lame?? The LCD would show the G15 logo and nothing would work. I have to kill the lcore.exe (that’s the exe) process and launch it back – every time. The only way to fix it was using a batch file to kill the process and launch the app. Of course, thanks to the Windows Task Scheduler, you could do it automatically. But in your head you know, you are cheating. You are cheating for a company that made crappy software. ugh!

I hardly launch the app anyways, but the last two times I did it, I was playing BF3 and it crashed both the driver and the game. Why does the game has to crash, if the driver gets reloaded? It doesn’t happen with most games. Again, crappy software.

So how did I fix the problem? I went back the legacy software, which is not elegant, but is much more stable. It fixed the problem. Guess what? As a bonus, the standby issue got fixed as well. w00t! Guess Logitech recruited some morons to make things pretty but dumb inside. (Does that remind you of another company like that? Yes, that’s you Apple!)

Glad I fixed it finally. (Mostly the standby issue.)

Logicool (Logitech) G500 replacement

I got the new mouse yesterday via Black Cats. Funny how a cat delivered a mouse. With it I also got a wrapper to send the old mouse back and the shipping address. I will send it tomorrow.

Yes, the middle mouse button is working fine for the moment. I don't know how long it will last though. Since the mouse has three years of warranty, I will be covered for the entire time I will be in Japan.

Logitech gets points from me for the customer support.