Slammin

I actually liked my Cougar for about two weeks when I first got it. The longer I had it, the more them manly springs started getting on my nerves. It was awesome for jet sims, but really a PITA for Mech Warrior and WWII flight sims. I made it more manageable by reshaping the springs to lower the tension, but ultimately, U2NXT'd it. I have never used a better stick than Cougar U2/NXT but the WH does come in a very close 2nd.

Spectre, it supposedly locks the firmware from inadvertant corruption. Even if you have not been affected by that yet, enough folks have and so TM fixed it with this firmware version. As was said, though you may not need it now, if you ever do need it, by then it will be too late. You will have to send the unit back for repair.

Yeah, I bit too. Installed it and then starting reading the rest of the first posts, lol! It works just like the previous version for me, just not with the 64bit A10.

My red wire broke. The symptom was, pressing one button on the stick would light up all buttons. I guess it was pinched and finally broke. I managed to splice it back and put a little electrical tape on it over the soldier. All is well now but it is not a pleasant experience taking it apart like that. I had no idea that a HALL circuit is actually an IC chip with a magnet floating over it. Pretty cool!

I thought it was a silly question :-) But seriously, YES!

Have you though about setting the monitors in portrait configuration? I think that's what I would do with 3 24" monitors.

They just added more red goop. It is definitely a lube problem.

The update software actually installs a new device driver so that it can talk directly to the firmware. This seems normal. I think you guys may be confusing people. The same thing happens when you update video drivers.

I would be cautious with any petroleum product on plastic parts.

Updated and running fine here. My motivation? "Protection of the flash write through HID to avoid potential flash corruption" As Teej says, the Hog works differently than the Cougar. The Cougar will actually download code to generate character output from key presses. The Hog only generates DX key presses, and uses TARGET to translate them. This new firmware download is supposed to prevent the Hog firmware from being inavertently corrupted, which seems to be the primary failure most users affected have experienced. I would advise anyone to update the firmware, even if they haven't experienced problems, yet.

And, will someone please shut that sily JellybeanTiger up? I am so bored with him polluting this forum.

Cali, I really have to say that although I was an early adopter to 64bit OS's, TM really did step up to the plate in delivering drivers. It did take longer than I wished, but heck, look at Natural Point, and I love TrackIR, but understanding that things take time, I was, and am patient, and the drivers came for the Cougar, as I'm sure they will for TrackIR. I'm really at a loss with why you can't get your Cougar going. My only thought is that is HAS to be defective because from all the advice in this thread, you should be up and running with it.

"THIS THING WILL DESTROY YOUR SOUL." Dammit, I spit coffee all over my keyboard! Will you give it a rest!

Who woke up Rip Van Winkle?

No worries. I usually create threads like these when I have beer in my eye :P

Yeah, for what it's worth, it doesn't appear this behavior causes any issue with my throttle, just something I've observed. My guess is that the throttle is not reacting to a USB shutdown code or something, just like Teej said. One thing for certain that is troubling is that some folks are unplugging their units after they shut down. This time of year the air is so dry that I hate even opening up my computer for anything. I know about static electricity and proper grounding, but that sounds very risky since a lot of folks may not be aware of static electricity and grounding, and how damaging it can be to computer parts.

The throttle does seem to have some very strange behavior though. It stays lit when the computer sleeps or is shutdown. Or, if you have the throttle plugged into a USB hub, the throttle stays lit when the computer shuts down. If you power the hub off, the throttle goes dark but if you then power the hub on, the 5 round lights on the throttle light up. Maybe this is fine but then again, maybe some condition exists (botton position, etc.) where the throttle is expecting a firmware flash when it sees a power transition?

No, you can run the game full screen when using TouchBuddy.

Kinda weird people keep picking on the throttle. The part that your hand is in contact with most is aluminum. As far as play, the play/looseness is probably less than the real deal. I mean, think about your car with manual transmission. Wobbly gear shifter? Sure is. Normal? Yes. There really is nothing at all wrong with a part being made of plastic, when plastic is OK for the part. Plastics, sometimes embedded with resins that make them more durable than metal in some cases, are not a bad thing. I think even the P-51 Mustang had some composit materials in it's wing. And, I'd rather wear Kevlar than an old suit of armor. Plastic does not=cheap, all the time :-)

The throttle handles actually are covered with what seems like brushed aluminum. Even if the handles were completely plastic though, I don't see that as a minus because the parts that are plastic feel sturdy enough. I think the throttle is pretty awesome.

The throttle alone is worth the price. I'm happy with my purchase.

Of course it's not as smooth as a stick with no mechanics (Nxt) but it is much improved from what it was before. I'm very satisfied with it and can understand why some people cannot feel the 'grind/bumpiness' - theirs probably already had enough red grease.

Mine originally had almost none of the red grease and there wasn't enough of it in there to spread around so I don't know how good it would have been. I suspect very good if there were enough though. The Valvoline synthetic multi purpose grease is called Valvolene Syn Power http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_x_7070009-P_x_x?cm_mmc=CSE-_-Google-_-VALUE3-_-VALUE4&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=7070009 There's no pic but it comes in the standard wheel bearing grease container.

Thick grease definitely works better than the watery lithium spray lub and WD40 I tried the first time. The grease I'm using now is Valvoline automotive synthetic - lithium. It's almost as heavy as wheel bearing grease, and feels about the same consistency as the red goop TM uses. It really made a world of difference!

Well, the surfaces of the ball and joint are very rough. I think this is probably by design, but it seems the heavier the grease, the better. I didn't have enough of the red goop in there to spread onto the ball, so I just cleaned up everything and applied some lithium based heavy grease to the ball. It's only been an hour or so but so far it feels great! I'll report back if anything changes. Also, the grease felt so good that I put the springs back the way they were and also because it turns out that without enough spring tension, I get white knuckle really bad.