Throttle stuck open Steering locks, Wheelplate Display freezes !

morsify · Apr 7, 2013

Can anyone please help me solve this.
It is a very random problem, but is extremely frustrating when it happens during a long race

I have 3 USB Race Sim 'controller' - a G27 wheel & pedals; a Pro-Race LED Wheelplate Display; and a home made button box built on a Symprojects JC32 controller. All 3 are connected by USB to a powered USB hub.
Everything is generally fine, except for a very occasional freeze of one or more of these items. It might be quite rare, but it is getting very frustrating as it can strike at any time. For example, I'm just going through Paddock Hill bend when the steering freezes and the throttle sticks open, I have no control and I hit the tyres at full speed. Or it might be the ProRace display that freezes - the rev lights suddenly are all lit, the a times are frozen on the display, and the buttons do not work. If I'm lucky I can pause the game and unplug the usb cable, reconnect it and it starts working again. But usually it is the steering or throttle and my race is over.
I suspect, but cannot be 100% sure, that it is a conflict or momentary lack of power in the usb port(s).
Has anyone else suffered with this, and did you find a definite cure?
(I have Windows 7 64bit, 8GB ram, 2 x HD5750 1GB cards, 750 Watt power supply, 3ghz AMD quad CPU, FoxconnA79AS PCIE motherboard, USB 2.0 sockets).

Any help with this would be appreciated,

Keith

morsify · Apr 7, 2013

To add to this, it first happened a couple of months ago, when I began using the three usb items together. I moved the steering wheel to one of the sockets on the main case, and left the other two in the usb hub. I made sure no external drives were plugged in, or anything else unnecessary. It has not happened for a month and I thought I had solved it. But the last couple of days, it has happened 3 times. I can not replicate the problem, it seems to be completely random.

morsify · Apr 8, 2013

Possibly solved - I may have solved this - I will nly know for sure if over the next few weeks it has not happened again.
I checked in my bios and found that the USB controller speed was set at 'full speed' instead of 'high speed'. I have now turned it up to 'high speed', and I am hoping that this will be enough to solve any conflict or bottlenecking that was happening. Time will tell.

Jim Cole · Apr 10, 2013

When you switched the wheel to the motherboard instead of the hub, did the wheel still have the issue or just the button box and the wheel plate?

morsify · Apr 10, 2013

When I moved the G27 to the main case sockets, it still had the problem. So I am hoping it was the speed setting of my usb controller.
So far, since turning the USB speed up to highspeed, it has not happened again, but as I say, it is very early days to say whether it is cured or not.

Jim Cole · Apr 11, 2013

Hope things get sorted out for you, btw full speed is faster than high speed on the USB settings.

morsify · Apr 11, 2013

Thanks Jim, but it' s not, there are lots of articles on the web saying the opposite:

USB supports three data rates:
A Low Speed (USB 1.1, USB 2.0) rate of 1.5 Mbit/s (187 kB/s) that is mostly used for Human Interface Devices (HID) such as keyboards, mice, and joysticks.
A Full Speed (USB 1.1, USB 2.0)
rate of 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s). Most USB Hubs support Full
Speed.
A Hi-Speed (USB 2.0) rate of 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s).
A Super-Speed (USB 3.0) rate of 4.8 Gbit/s (600
MB/s).

Anyway, the saga continues - the pro-race display (plugged into the hub) has locked up twice this evening - but at least I can pause the sim, restart the display and then continue - meanwhile the G27 has been fine. I'm now writing down every time it happens to try and find a common cause. As soon as I get a short extension cable, all items will go into the main board taking the hub out of the equation, and I'll see what happens then.