T300 - Fanatec V2 pedals combo causing game freezes pc shut down

[chris draper]

I have a Thrustmaster T300 to which I added a set of Fanatec clubsport V2 pedals last September. I used them for a little while but was then too busy so didnt set them up again until June when the Pcars 2 Le mans pack came out. PCars2 kept on freezing and then my pc would shut down. I initially thought it was a problem with Pcars 2. However the same issue happens with all racing games (AC F1-2017 etc). The pc isn't over heating. If I play using an Xbox controller I DON'T get the issue. All other games (DCS etc work fine because the wheel isnt plugged in) I unistalled all the wheel and pedal drivers and did a fresh install. The problem still occurs. If I run just the T-300 (without the pedals plugged in) I get the problem .

The exact problem is: Game freezes after (randomly) and either restarts after a few minutes or I have to shut it down via the power button and restart it.

Does anyone have any suggestions ??

Cheers

 

[chris draper]

I guess nobody has come across this problem. Could it just be the T300 going wrong ??

 

[Matthew Wilkinson]

You are using the pedals independently from the Wheel base, could be a USB issue, have you tried other ports?By the way what motherboard and CPU are you running?

 

[chris draper]

Hi Mathew, Thanks replying.

My Motherboard is a GIGABYTE GA-Z87-HD3

Yes the pedals are working independently. However when I unplugged them and just used the T300 the game still crashed. I didn't remove the drivers though for the pedals when I did this

I have also tried plugging the two devices into different USB ports. Game crashes

I have subsequently totally removed and re-downloaded all the drivers for both wheel and pedals. Game crashes

I have updated the firmware of the wheel.

I can play all day with an Xbox controller without crashes. I can also play flight sims etc with other controllers and pc works perfectly.

Could the T300 be faulty ? It did work without any issues for years before I bought the pedals though. But it was stored away for 8 months and the problems only happened after bringing it out in June. Im pretty sure when I first bought the pedals last September everything worked fine.

I dont really want to buy a new wheel if the problem isnt hardware based but have no idea what to do.

Any thoughts would be VERY appreciated !

Cheers

 

[chris draper]

Well I thought I had sorted it. I read lots of posts about static electricity causing issues, and had noticed that the freeze often happens when I shift gears. So tonight I tried wearing gloves. I got to about 1hour 15 minutes and just started thinking I had solved the problem then FREEEEEZE computer seized up and I had to do a hard restart. About 1 hour and 15 minutes is pretty much a consistent length of time it lasts before seizing up. Its either 15 minutes or an hour and 15 minutes pretty consistently. Please any ideas ???

 

[fasterbater]

Have you tried to monitor your temps and voltages using a tool like HWinfo?

Also, have you taken a look at your Windows Event Viewer?

Have you tried updating the BIOS on your motherboard? I’m not familiar with your specific model, but maybe there is a known USB voltage issue. Also, how many USB prehipherals do you have plugged in? How many ports? Are you using 2.0 or 3.0? Power supply capacity and age?

I’ve noticed more stability using USB 2.0 ports for both my CSPV3 pedals and my T300. I never experienced the same problem you’re having, but I did have some headaches getting both to play along in PC2 specifically. Calibrating and assigning functions to each item without any other USB perhipherals plugged in proved to be the most stable approach.

Hope this helps!

 

[chris draper]

Hi Fasterbater, thanks for the reply. Yes I think it could be something related to the MB or temps. I just tried to play with a gamepad and after 45minutes it froze. So I guess its not related to the T300 or pedals. Im doing a stress test with MSI Kombuster and after 11minutes GPU is 61c CPU 73c (max80c) . My PC case doesn't have great ventilation and a few weeks ago I noticed temps were getting to 100c. I cleaned all the dust etc and its much better. I will try and find the windows viewer you mentioned, but dont really know what I what to look out for unless its written in plain English.

 

[chris draper]

Whilst running the stress test the computer froze and I got a Clock-watchdog-timeout.

 

[fasterbater]

Yep that’s the proper place to look.
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3128616/windows-event-viewer.html

Usually, all anomalies will pop up in the event viewer. Use some Google-fu with the Event ID and descriptions to diagnose your problems based on the time tags displayed. It’s also a great place to diagnose any startup issues that may hinder performance or stability.

 

[fasterbater]

Whilst running the stress test the computer froze and I got a Clock-watchdog-timeout.

Check your BIOS and chipset firmware,utilities, turn off anti-virus, remove any “all in one” installers and cleaners, run memory tests, update BIOS and set to default settings... see from there

 

[chris draper]

Hi fasterbater Thansk again for your advice. I did a mem check and all was okay. I then downloaded Driver Easy and ran the scan. There were 15 out of date drivers including the "clock-watchdog-timer" one. (i dont know if thats significant ) and some about the CPU and sound etc. anyway Ive updated all the drivers and doing another stress test. If it crashes again I will reset the BIOS. In driver easy I checked the BIOS and it says its dated 2013.

 

[fasterbater]

Ok, well I hope it helps. I don’t use all in wonders, they cause more damage than they solve problems if you know how to properly find and isolate them. They also update certain drivers with general legacy drivers that IMO are better left untouched. Good luck

 

[chris draper]

So far MSI has been stress testing for just over an hour and all is good. Fingers crossed.

 

[chris draper]

Well MSI ran for 2 hours and the pc was stable. So this afternoon I fired up F1-2017. ran for 45 minutes then the PC froze. When I unplugged the wheel the system shut down and restarted. Back to square one I guess.

Im not confident enough to fiddle with the BIOS without some serious research.

I dont think its wheel related as it happens when they are not plugged in. Only when I'm playing games.

How can I check if the power supply is faulty. Its a corsair 850W one.

 

[chris draper]

I played Il2 battle of Kuban for 2 hours without an issue. I then tried to unistall F1 2017 and did a complete re-install. PC froze up after playing for 6 minutes. I just dont get it ........ :-(

 

[Jeremy Ford]

Is your CPU overclocked?

 

[chris draper]

Hi Jeremy, No its all stock including the GPU. I played an hour of WRC7 and then another hour of Assetto Corsa without any problems.

I read lots of similar threads on the steam F1-2017 discussion page and one thing that seemed to help was setting the graphics option to Windowed(fullscreen) . I tried that and after just over an hour of play it all seemed very stable and I havent had any stutters. So maybe its that. I hope so.