It didn't randomly decide not to work. He installed a bare operating system and did not install the device driver.
The reason why everything works so perfectly on a mac is because they decide for you what hardware you can use. Which is not a bad thing. It's all those "I CAN BUILD THAT DELL COMPUTER FOR HALF THE PRICE" tardcakes that give pc's a bad rep. That's like saying... I need a car... I'm just gonna take this turbocharged V8, put it on a Honda chassis with skateboard tires - and then blame the steering wheel when you inevitably crash.

Ok, to be fair though the home built ones are rarely the problem - it's the supermarket pc's.
Proximity to groceries is inversely proportional to quality of electronics.