Trying to make a stupid tablet work

So I bought a tablet for my girlfriend for Christmas, and lo and behold, the thing refuses to work on her computer. The tablet is a Wacom Bamboo Fun (I have the very same model on my own computer, which works perfectly fine) and her computer/OS is a Sony Vaio running on windows XP.

The issue is not a driver issue (I don't think) because I've installed the latest driver from the wacom site. To be honest, I don't know what the fucking problem is other than that nothing works: the tablet hooks up, it lights up (and the LED light in it hard blinks, as opposed to glowing softly like it does on my computer) and everything seems to install fine when I put the install disc in. But after installation, the computer prompts with a pop-up message that it doesn't recognize the new hardware, that it won't work properly... And when I hook up the tablet a hardware installation wizard boots up immediately saying it cant find the right whatevers to get model "CTE450W" to function.


At this point returning the tablet is out of the question since I bought it a while ago, and I've tried calling the customer support for wacom and was on the phone for 3 hours with no luck in getting it to work. To be fair, the guy kind of sounded like he didn't know what he was doing though.


I mean, I don't know what to do. Has anyone here had this problem before? Is it a problem with the tablet (I ask this stupidly because I've hooked it up to MY computer and it works FINE) or is it a problem with my girlfriends stupid fucking computer which seems to have more problems with it every time someone so much as LOOKS at it?


Help or advice would be much appreciated, thanks.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Did you run the installer you downloaded off of Wacom's site here over top of the installation done off the CD?

I've had to jump through hoops to get a Wacom tablet working after I unknowlingly installed newer drivers over top of out-of-date drivers (I have a Graphire4 and a really old Bondi-Blue tablet). Ultimately, ran the uninstaller for the latest drivers, ran the uninstaller for the old drivers, rebooted, and then just ran the installer for the latest drivers (you might want to make sure Windows Defender and AntiVirus is disabled before running the installer).

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Originally Posted by ElectricSheep

Did you run the installer you downloaded off of Wacom's site here over top of the installation done off the CD?

I've had to jump through hoops to get a Wacom tablet working after I unknowlingly installed newer drivers over top of out-of-date drivers (I have a Graphire4 and a really old Bondi-Blue tablet). Ultimately, ran the uninstaller for the latest drivers, ran the uninstaller for the old drivers, rebooted, and then just ran the installer for the latest drivers (you might want to make sure Windows Defender and AntiVirus is disabled before running the installer).

This.

Also if that doesn't work try installing older drivers from the Wacom site if you're running Vista. Its bizarre but back when I ran Windows & Vista, the newer driver releases didn't really work. I'm sure by now the problem has been fixed, but just in case.

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Originally Posted by ElectricSheep

Did you run the installer you downloaded off of Wacom's site here over top of the installation done off the CD?

I've had to jump through hoops to get a Wacom tablet working after I unknowlingly installed newer drivers over top of out-of-date drivers (I have a Graphire4 and a really old Bondi-Blue tablet). Ultimately, ran the uninstaller for the latest drivers, ran the uninstaller for the old drivers, rebooted, and then just ran the installer for the latest drivers (you might want to make sure Windows Defender and AntiVirus is disabled before running the installer).

Well, initially what my girlfriend did was run the installer CD, the tablet didn't work after that, and then she went to the site and downloaded that particular driver. After running the setup for THAT driver, the tablet still didn't work, so ultimately I just ended up uninstalling the tablet and that driver altogether.

I'll try doing what Ultima said and installing an older driver and see if that works. Other than that, I have no idea what else I could or should do. I dread the idea of having to give the tablet away or something like that, since it was a gift I was really hoping she could utilize.

How ya doing, buddy?

Well, one thing to keep in mind is a fresh start for installing drivers. If the CD doesn't work then uninstall. After that install the new XP drivers from wacom's site. If those don't work then uninstall. After that install old XP drivers from wacom's site.

It might be a good idea to run ccleaner between installations to make sure you don't have some shitty registry entries effing things up.

I was speaking idiomatically.