CH Yoke & Pedals (USB)

**Bart458** · 01-05-2002, 05:42 AM

Hi guys,
Ive posted this problem before,but I dont know what else to do.Ive had the DF734 since it became available for 2K2 and still havent been able to finish a flight.I have a CH Yoke & Pedals (USB)and they keep disconnecting from FSim.When I first bought them the prob was REALLY bad,and I couldnt fly for more than 5 mins without them disconnecting(usually only 1 or 2 mins)and having to reboot.Ive installed viatech 4in1 drivers and the prob is much better(sometimes flying for an hour or so)but they still disconnect.Ive had my BIOS settings checked out(theyre OK),installed a microsoft patch,talked to the people I bought them from,emailed CH support(waiting on a reply),promised my first born mail child to the FS GOD and even prayed to Mecha!!!
CAN SOME ONE PLEEEEAAAASSSEEE HELP ME as im almost at the end of my tether.
My system is a AMD 1.2 gig Athlon C,ATX T/Bird mboard,256 meg DDR
GeForce2 GTS Pro 64meg latest drivers(tried the 12`s no difference),sblaster live sound card.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME.
Bart :-(

Rees · 01-05-2002, 07:34 AM

Hi

Nice hardware but you did not say O.S.But if you are using XP you can do two things.
Go to device manager and disable all power saving features for
USB hubbs and devices.
And go to to the CH Products site and get the latest drivers and just load the drivers.
This is assuming that you have XP installed as this cured all of my problems.
If not please give O.S so we be able to further assist you.

Hope this helps

Ron Rees

Rescue52 · 01-05-2002, 07:57 AM

I had the same problems with my CH Pedals USB, and also useing XP. I solved the problem by de-installing XP. I had also trouble with my CH flightsim Yoke PC, there are only 6 buttons working of the availeble 10. This is due to a none availeble driver for it, and CH will not release any driver for a gameport Joystick before summer 2002. I decided to uninstall XXP and go back to Win98SE.

Tino

Rees · 01-05-2002, 08:18 AM

Hi

I have had great sucess with FS2002/XP after application of the above fixes with my CH yoke and pedals USB.
But I guess the thread is academic until we find out which OS he has

Regards

Ron

**Bart458** · 01-05-2002, 09:37 AM

Ron,
Im using Win98SE.Ive been having another play with it and I have another development.When the disconnect happens,I go into game controllers and only 1 product is showing,i.e.either yoke or pedals,but neither work even though 1 still shows,I have tried switching them in the USB hubs but makes no difference,when one drops out the other is useless.NOW,I plugged my yoke into my SB card and left the pedals in the MB hub and when the pedals(which were in the MB hub dropped out the yoke(in the sound card hub)kept working.OK,another development just now as im typing this,when the disconnect happens FS freezes for a sec.while the disconnection takes place.The PC just froze on me now,Ive just checked game controllers and the pedals are gone again.Is this making any sense as its confusing the #@$% out of me.
Bart

Rees · 01-05-2002, 10:36 AM

Bart

Ok now you are confusing the &#*! out fo me.
If both your yoke and pedals are both USB how on earth can you plug into a sound blaster gameport.From your last post it sounds like you have a pc yoke and USB pedals.If this is the case then it`s by me and hopefully someone else can help you but mismatched components PC/USB sounds fatal to me.
I wish I could help more and let me know if I have misread you.

Good Luck

Ron Rees

**w6ffc** · 01-05-2002, 01:04 PM

Hi Bart:

Join the club. I also have a problem with USB yoke and pedals but not disconnecting rather they just stop working in FS. If I go and look at the control panel/gaming options when this happens it says "OK" for both devices but if I go check the properties for the failed unit it does not respond and like you it takes a reboot of the system to recover. It is randon, one time it will be the yoke and the next time it might be the pedals and on a couple of occasions both quit working.

Now, having said all that I notice 2 things we have in common, SoundBlaster Live and GeForce 2 video. I don't think the video card is involved however I have been looking all over the internet regarding USB problems and have seen mentioned a few times that SoundBlaster Live was involved. To be fair, the problems they were discussing were not EXACTLY like what we are experiencing but being associated with USB problems in general makes me nervous. The problems in question were regarding digital cameras.

I have two other sound systems available to me, a SoundBlaster PCI128 and the AC97 sound system built into my MoBo. I think I will try one of the other sound cards and see what happens..

One further note, I'm running WinMe. I upgraded my MoBo recently and also changed to 750 megs of PC133 ram. I kept getting lockups, out of memory errors and (get this) SOUND PROBLEMS where the card would start blarring out at full volume (I have a 100 watt speaker system!) a terrible motorboat sound and nearly blow me out of the room. After MUCH trouble shooting it was learned from various sources that Win98, Win98SE and WinMe have trouble allocating resources over 512 megs of RAM. Ok, so I removed one of the three sticks of RAM (now have 512mb) and guess what? The problem went away!! Yes, I tried the other sticks also, any two in the system and it works fine. I can make the problem come and go at will by simply inserting the third stick. The system now is stable as a rock exceot for this new USB problem.

The common thread here appears to be SOUND.. No hard evidence but then again, nobody actully SAW O.J. do anything either.

The mystery continues.

Mike B.

P.S. Try this. Remove (in device manager) all your sound blaster stuff, and then shut down the system and remove the sound card and go fly for a while and see if the USB stuff hangs in there. I may try that as well..

LTEtabs · 01-05-2002, 01:26 PM

There's a major USB disconnect bug with certain VIA chipset motherboards and Windows XP. My system had a very similar problem going on - I had things plugged into the mobo USB ports and they would sporadically disconnect and lock up etc... I tried everything and was pretty much on the verge of buying a new non-VIA motherboard when someone on an AMD tech site finally offered two solutions.

1. Buy a powered USB hub, plug it into the mobo port and then plug all USB devices into it. Guess what, it works!! I have a printer, scanner, mouse, and my new CH USB Flight Sim Yoke all plugged into the hub with no disconnect problems whatsoever.

2. Since the problem lies in the VIA USB controller on the motherboard and the driver for it, you can buy a little $20 PCI USB controller card that will solve the problem as well. Disable the onboard VIA USB controller in the BIOS and then install the card. It should work fine.

Try the powered hub first though...

**w6ffc** · 01-05-2002, 01:57 PM

Ya know, that's just intriguing enough that I'm going to try that. I want to get a USB printer pretty soon anyway and I will need more ports that I just might do that today. Thanks for the tip.

Mike B.

**w6ffc** · 01-05-2002, 04:55 PM

Just got back from the computer store with my trusty 4 port USB powered hub ($10.00) and alas that makes the problem WORSE! Go figure..

Next step is the sound card issue..

Mike B.