Is my second DK2 about to die?

777Driver · Dec 26, 2015

First DK2 died a year ago, the new unit has only been used for 4 months this year. Since Horizons the positional tracking will stop randomly (screen goes grey) I can unplug the camera, plug it back in again and everything's back to normal for 30 minutes or so.

Initially I thought it was to do with a Saitek control panel, the panel would go dead, and kill the tracking in the rift. Unplugging the panel from the USB port would fix the rift, now I have the panel permanently unplugged, the rift still dies after a while .

Any ideas? The loss of tracking seems to be random, I could be parked at station doing nothing.

Tepescovir · Dec 26, 2015

are you using usb 3 or 2, and have you tried a decent powered usb hub?

grammatonfeather · Dec 26, 2015

Motherboard or PSU issue.

Severn · Dec 26, 2015

I had this problem when i used the blue USB3 port on the back of the computer .
Since i selected a normal usb 2.0 port for the pheripherals (tracker etc) from the DK2 . It all went away .
I also use the external power adapter that came with it .
Having to many usb pheripherals can sometimes give issues and its best to give them the most stable power source there is .

You probably havent noticed this problem since before horizons , this is because standard ED wasnt "asking" that much power draw from your PSU.
Horizons makes cards go HOT , so at least you know your getting your money worth in the GPU department. The drawback is this will test your system stability to the max.

Raptoyd · Dec 26, 2015

Severn said:
I had this problem when i used the blue USB3 port on the back of the computer .
Since i selected a normal usb 2.0 port for the pheripherals (tracker etc) from the DK2 . It all went away .
I also use the external power adapter that came with it .
Having to many usb pheripherals can sometimes give issues and its best to give them the most stable power source there is .

You probably havent noticed this problem since before horizons , this is because standard ED wasnt "asking" that much power draw from your PSU.
Horizons makes cards go HOT , so at least you know your getting your money worth in the GPU department. The drawback is this will test your system stability to the max.

Yes, and it seems like any overclocking at all on the GPU causes crashes in this game.

StarJim · Dec 26, 2015

May be too easy but i recently had a problem with the connectors on the rift, they are covered so that you will not see if a connector is not plugged in properly.

dutchy2000 · Dec 26, 2015

I had a similar issue it turned out to be the cable that connected the rift to the computer. Try connecting the 'audio' looking cable directly into the rift from the sensor. Don't do the USB, just the thin cable. If that fixes the issue then it is most likely the connector on the hdmi cable. I had to have them send me a replacement for that and that fixed the issue.

777Driver · Dec 26, 2015

Thanks guy's, I overclocked my 980TI during Horizons beta, I'll dial back settings and see if that helps. If that doesn't help I'll start looking at connectors.

_Wilf · Dec 26, 2015

I had all sorts of problems with my Rift loosing IR tracking, turn out I had overloaded my USB controllers. Try unplugging stuff you don't need and plugging the Rift camera into a slot without much stuff around it.

Hope this helps!

Wilf

ranix · Dec 26, 2015

I've always had headtracking issues like that. Sometimes it seems to maybe be mitigated by moving the camera or plugging it into a different USB slot. I think the camera on the DK2 just sucks

Elooder · Dec 27, 2015

I have about half of my USB ports on the motherboard (in the back) used. I also have 2 USB3 ports at the front of the case. Until recently, I was able to happily plug in a powered USB hub with 7 ports into the back of the computer and use that (and ALL of the USBs on the back were populated then. Now, I have to plug my mouse into one of the front USB3 ports and the other front USB3 is taken up by my soundcard. As for the back, 3 ports are not working at all (one or two are USB3) and if I connect and disconnect anything too many times into my monitor (which has a USB2 hub) or ANY USB port anywhere on the system, I "loose" my mouse (used to switch off the keyboard a few times as well but I reconnected that to a different USB port in the back).
The USB hub in the keyboard is not working properly (not enough power although it should have enough and the keyboard is new) and the previously used powered hub is out of the question as that just shuts down most of the other ports when something is connected to it.
Basically I'm running out of USB ports on the computer.

The motherboard is an ASrock Extreme9 with the x79 chipset.

I've also had these dying USB ports on an ASUS board that consequently got delegated to a rendering node that doesn't need anything connected in the USB.

So if your motherboard is an ASUS or an ASrock (which is basically ASUS spelled differently even though they're not the same company or even a division of ASUS), then you're having the same thing - dying USB ports.
I haven't yet tried using a PCI-E USB card but will when the motherboard USBs die off.

Also, I'm not the only one who's experienced this as I know some people with the same thing.

TL/DR:
It's not the DK2, it's the motherboard, specifically the USB controller(s)/ports. Also make sure you have them grounded to the case (the cutout plate for the back motherboard ports should be in place).