Africom’s ZTE supplied modems are having compatibility issues when connected to Windows Home 7 machines. The problem occurs when the connect button is clicked on the dongle’s menu, leading to that most hated of Windows menaces; a blue screen. We visited the Africom shop along Jason Moyo Avenue on Friday and were immediately surprised by the lack of staff at the often congested shop.
While there were only 3 people in the shop serving the somewhat average queue of customers, a customer assistant there was well receiving but could not offer a solution. The assistant attempted to explain that all the dongles were responding this way on the specific Windows Home 7 OS and that the only solution was to “install another operating system”, something that downright shocked us.
For those fortunate souls who have never experienced a blue screen, try to picture a scenario in which all your immediate information is lost to an error message characterised by an infamous blue background. The only way out of such a predicament would be to restart a computer, losing any unsaved data in the process. Upon being prompted for a realistic solution, the assistant offered another dongle and as stated; even that new dongle triggered another blue screen.
The only recourse was that the assistant offered to reimburse any customer experiencing such a problem. We believe the fault lies with the Chinese supplier, ZTE who ironically work with a great deal of the world’s leading telecoms operators. While their cheap price advantage is clear to operators, this can come with other forms of cheapness as we have witnessed.
To date, Huawei appears to be the most trusted Chinese telecoms and hardware supplier. If you’ve experienced problems with their hardware or are having problems with any other hardware supplied by a local operator, please post it below so that other consumers can be aware.
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20 comments
or as you candidly put it in your previous article……go donglewanaland (switch to the next dongle in your bag)
Can I also add that network signal sucks these days.
Chiko, that makes 2 of us, especially at 7.30 – 9am. Let’s
hope Africom are shamed into responding with a practical solution!
hie, do u have more information about the dongle- there maybe free firmware upgrades available online.
I don’t quite agree with you that Africom’s ZTE dongles is to blame for the blue screen of death. I have 4 of them and use them interchangeably on Windows 7 Home/Professional and Linux without any glitches. The blue screen is synonymous with the Windows operating system and it’s not something you can attribute to a dongle or its driver. It has been around a long time on Windows and it’s a function of Windows shooting itself in the foot when it fails to juggle properly the memory of running applications.
Techzim do a bit more canvassing and I will bet you that Mac users don’t have this problem along with Linux ones.
I am experiencing the same issue (blue screen) at work, even though I don’t use Africom’s dongles. This happens after connecting my Samsung 1TB HDD, hp 8GB flash drive or my phone via usb. It doesn’t happen all the time though. I am running Windows 7 Professional 64 bit version. Not sure if Africom is entirely to blame here.
JamesM is right, every process and application which runs on Micro$haft windows is given a memory allocation. If Windows assign same memory space to 2 different applications, it gets confused, and when its confused it gives a blue screen.
We have at least 6 Windows 7 machines of different versions like 64bit bla bla with different settings on them. They are run to the max everyday and most of the times they just give up with different error messages.
There is a lot of driver issues with Windows 7, and also when they tried to emulate Linux security, MicroShaft totally blew it up. The default security settings on Windows are just a grief.
I would advise you to contact the guys from RED mobile- they have ways of finding solutions to these type of things… I can tell you they sorted me out in regards to Africom stuff. Customer Service is still alive at Causeway Building Ground floor…
I think next time Tech Zim should do more research when it comes to postings your little biased and baseless strories , you now start bhaving like polititian on media/newspapers, AfRICOM,ZTE or any other comapny that u can write about please first gather more and practical worthy writting stories. The error that u talked abt above is not Africom/ZTE problem, its your supidity that caused u to be blincared when u wrote this story. Go in the feild and hunt for tech issues not errors dear Editor. There are more technological issues to be posted by u using ths platform not to start to be a propaganda techno paper. Do yourself a favour of going back, buy a data card use it again or give your frend to use it and give u feedback, maybe its your PC(s) that have a real problem.
Thank you
i think Tech Zim should employ experienced technical people.its so obvious to the technical world that the blue screen there are talking about is not to do with the Africom modems.its got to do with their machines.ive used the africom modem on different operating systems and it works well.i personally would give Africom thumbs up compared to the other service providers.kip it up.
come on techzim this are not facts , blue error , we want facts not witch craft pointing
to the guys saying the bluescreen error has nothing to do with the africom modem are the real idiots. did you read the post carefully they kept getting blue screens everytime they used the dongle. Its a software/driver related issue (which comes provided on the africom modem). any noob can tell you that no need for a techie.
How did you come to the conclusion that its a driver issue?
experience ask any genuine tech
likely to be a problem with the Africom customised connection software as opposed to the actual ZTE drivers.
i addresed that part in my first post software/driver issue too bad the guy didn’t read that
every actual 3g isp that I know of in actual countries use ZTE modems without hassle. Don’t blame ZTE when you buy the cheapest thing from them and don’t get the proper stuff because you want a low cost price and want to rip us off. Africom is a joke as are the rest of the ISPs bar maybe Telone and Powertel
Africom modem is not a problem. ZTE is not a problem. The user machine is a problem. Its not that it doesn not work with Windows 7 Home edition. but that user maybe techzim is a problem. In this tech world if you start with ICDL you are lost. Start with C++ and you are done.
What else do you expect from a company that cannot spell the word “Success” on their banner? Check closely…
https://selfservice.ai.co.zw/webportal/themes/portal/images/index_r2_c1.jpg
i know for sure that africom has been selling faulty modems especially in Bulawayo. Their sales lady even confirmed that to me.