This Windows update break driver thing happened to me too. I talked to their tech support. Found the solution:
Just go to Device Manager, manually "update drivers" that is placed in the C:\01\01 folder. Then run the patcher.exe in the same folder. Then disable all windows update (Google this). And it'll work.
Also, smOS does work yes (I used the RX image on USB), just that it's not very stable, it reboots every hour or so. So I'm back to Windows.
Also, if you use the new version of Claymore 9.x, you need to set -dcri 6 to get ~230MH/s, otherwise, it defaults to -dcri 30, and you get only 215 MH/s.
But all in all, I agree with you, it's not a good product. I bought a few of them, I still have issues at this moment. Like 1 card is stuck at 8MH/s, and 1 fan is not spinning, and 1 miner only sees 4 out of 8 cards after a week of running fine with 8, probably broken motherboard.
I'm working with their tech support, so far they've been responsive and running tests, but I don't know how easy it would be to replace the faulty motherboard (in my opinion).
You were right about Smos. I've had it running on my Pandas for a week and no issues except for the occasional restart. Is it the rig restarting or the mining software? These are remote machines so I'm not sure.
Also thanks for the tip about dcri....will try that on a later version of claymore. Currently I am using 8.1 with stock clocks and they hum along at 222mh.