USB issues

[pab]

Ladies and Gents,

I've been having ongoing issues with USB on my PC, I've lived with it until now, but I've just about had enough, so I'm looking to see if I can resolve it, any input from anyone who has any ideas welcome and appreciated.

I have quite a few devices running on USB on my PC, Wireless mouse and keyboard combo, 2 external HDs (with external power sources), flatbed scanner, printer (also both with external power supplies), Wireless headphones, sim wheel, sim pedals, sim wheel buttons and shifters (running off a Leo bodnar SLI=M), rift camera. I think that's all. I'm running this on a 5+ year old PC (i5 2500 and R9 280X (upgraded recently) with 1 SSD and 2 internal HDDs all running stock speeds with an Antec EarthWatts 500W supplying power. I have the external HDDs and printer/scanner running off a powered hub, but the sim stuff seems very picky, I haven't been able to get most of that running off a hub so they are all plugged directly into the rear or front of the case.

So, the issue is that I get regular USB dropouts, I'll be driving and all of a sudden the FFB will disappear and then gradually return over a second or so. Annoying, but not game breaking (it probably happens once every couple of hours total) so I've just put up with it for years. Recently though, it's become more of an issue, a few months ago the Rift camera would stop working 10 minutes or so into a session, I managed to resolve that by shuffling devices on ports, but now this week I've been having stuck throttle or stuck shifting issues, and it seems no amount of shuffling ports gives me a setup where everything will work reliably (so racing isn't an option atm because at some stage in every race I either lose control over the pedals, or shifters etc).

So, the gut feeling I have is power supply, I know the video card I have is power hungry, and my power requirements could put me on the edge of a 500W supply (especially one that's getting on in years), but the nagging thought I have is that I was seeing some usb issues before I upgraded the vid card so I'm struggling believe that it's just not capable of supplying the total amount of power required? I do accept though, that it may be related to power reliability, and having more overhead might help. The issue I have is I'd rather go out and spend $150+ on a 750W power supply after confirming that it's the problem, but I can't see how I can do that without buying it. The other options I can see being possible culprits are drivers, or MB, but again, I'm not real experienced in ways to determine which is the cause.

So, does anyone have any ideas on ways you can test or log the PS or USB performance to confirm what might be going wrong before I go and spend my money?

Ta,

PB.

[Shonky]

You could try installing something like core temp and watching the voltages that way, I'd be surprised if its power supply though, if its being overloaded they typically shut down entirely when they trip out.

Do any of the usb devices have a power light on them that you could look out for to see if the usb port protection has been tripped and cut power to the port? In this scenario the pc is unlikely to crash and Windows may even tell you which port is overloaded depending on whether the mobo reports it to the OS.

[wobblysauce]

Well, myself am not a fan of hubs if there are free USB slots..
What Mobo are you using.. and are you using the internal USB connections.

500w is enough to run a single r9 280x, it is the amp of your +12v rail is important.
EarthWatts EA500 22A both 12rails.

As you are running most things with there own power adaptor, and not drawing from the computer.

[pab]

see if the usb port protection has been tripped and cut power to the port?

I assume it does this if there is a short in the device? Hmm, that's possible, the SLI-M is running through a home made USB cable and it's been there for as long as I've been using FFB (so would match the fact that there have been issues of one form or another for a long time). The only thought I have on that though, is that it's not always the SLI-M that drops out, a few days ago it was the pedals that were doing it. It doesn't seem to be one particular USB port or one particular USB device. I might try a drive with the sequential shifter for a while, that will at least tell me if ti's the SLI-M causing the issue.

Thanks.

[AstrO]

It could be one of your USB devises that is causing instability, and it could even be the powered hub (especially if it's a cheap Chinese unit). Have you tried with just your sim gear + mouse and keyboard? Also, try swapping ports with just these items connected (especially if the motherboard has a 3rd party chip running extra USB ports).

It could also mean that the power filtering on your motherboard is on the way out. Can you see any bad caps on the board itself?

[pab]

Yeah, must admit, I haven't had a close look at the MB for a while, I'll have a look tonight and then if it all looks good then I'll pull everything out and work my way forward one by one to see if that helps figure it out.

Thanks.

[pab]

So, this morning I think I've figured it out.

Looks like there's a short somewhere in the wiring to the SLI-M on the button plate on the wheel (I've got a home made (by my Father in law, who builds and repairs keyboards and amps for a living, so he knows what he's doing) usb to serial cable going to the back of the wheel, then using the wheel's internal wiring to go to the SLI-M. When I unplugged that and just used a normal USB cable plugged directly into the SLI-M it ran flawlessly for an almost hour long session of driving.

Now I just need to decide whether I go through the process of trying to find and fix the short, or just order in one of these. Would not be as neat, but it's sort of authentic, and with the rift on can't see it anyway.

Thanks to those who helped save me from buying a power supply I didn't need!