Hi all,

a) My machine seems to have forgotten what a USB keyboard is (Logitech G15), and is now ignoring mouse (Creative Fatal1ty) as well as external HD and yet another USB mouse. Pen drive still works though. I have cleared out vendor drivers, and greyed out HID/Unknown devices in Device Manager (including non-present and hidden items) but no luck. No ! marks etc by controllers, some !s by non-plug and play (Dgivecp, parport, serial, ssport). USB keyboard isn't recognised during boot up, and problem exists under XP and Vista.

Fortunately can use my old serial keyboard and mouse, but it's a real pain trying to manoeuvre in TF2 with an ol' mouse (as I found out trying to get round as a scout last night).

Anyone have any other ideas (excluding large hammer solution)?

b) Other item is probably a "feature" - any other 8800GTX (or similar) users ever find they get a slight horizontal shimmer mid screen if they turn fast? It's like the bottom half of the screen trying to catch up with top. No real impact, just slightly annoying that it's not perfect. Note: this is not necessarily on TF2 - in all the excitement can't remember if it happens, but certainly remember it on one or two other games (Planetside for instance).

Gahrain

Have you tried a different USB controller/header? What I mean is that if it happens in both vista and xp your controller/header might be gone.

I've tried it in all 6 USB ports but to no avail. Certainly made for a lot of redundant unknown USB devices when I cleaned it up!

Mouse stopped being recognised directly by machine completely couple of weeks ago, but I got round that by running it though keyboard hub.

It's been a problem on and off for a while (USB mouse dropping out mid-game, so toon can't turn at all); thought that upgrading BIOS had solved it, but it's come back with a vengeance now.

At least legacy stuff is still working - windows trouble shooting without mouse was hard work, and would have been almost impossible without keyboard.

I have 3 year warranty on machine so it'll get fixed eventually (I think), just want to be able to fix asap.

1) Right click on the ! in the device manager => driver => update driver doesn't solve the problem?

Pen drive uses a usb and works?

In order the usb keyboard/mouse to be recognised at the boot you must enable "USB legacy support" in BIOS.


2) I think you should enable vsync.

About b) is vsync indeed. It's a feature which enables synchonisation of both horizontal and vertial freqs so picture won't erm... stutter? like that when playing

_________________

I had a similar problem (on WinXP) last year with the difference that my external hdd wasn't recognized anymore. I searched the web and found out that there are some files missing.
Look into your \Windows\inf folder (hidden, so you have to make it visible) if all of the following files are present:

usb.inf
usb.pnf
usbport.inf
usbport.pnf
usbprint.inf
usbprint.pnf
usbstor.inf
usbstor.pnf
usbvideo.inf
usbvideo.pnf

if one or more of them are missing you have to copy them back from the windows cd or download them from a trusted web-source.

in case this doesn't work or you allready have all files in this folder go and search for "usb troubleshooter", there is a (german) program that fixes all usb problems by clearing out device manager and inf cache and installs drivers again.

you also may try these links:

http://www.usbman.com/Troubleshooter%20General.htm
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

Hi,

you might also want to try to re-install your chipset drivers from your motherboard.

Cheers,

a) Thanks for the assist - have got USB up and running again after doing a bunch of stuff as suggested/found out - see "tech" stuff at end in case anyone else ever has similar problem and wants some ideas. Ending up installing a USB/PCI card after everything else failed (unknown device everytime) - everything installed right first time, then thought wtf lets try old ports and they worked! Didn't work before card put in - all previous steps may have helped. Still reckon the USB controller is suspect (USB dropping from 2 to 1, USB item dropping altogether, kboard not found on boot up, unknown item etc and both on XP and Vista) - but I have 18months warranty left so we'll see. Will probably run external HD and mouse off the card just in case. Will check out Dr B's stuff too.

ps Apologies to Bose - he got lumbered with my first game back on a reasonable DPI mouse. After the previous 3 days I was used to using whole mouse mat to rotate, end result when I used a 800 dpi mouse I found it initially (er laughably embarrasing) difficult to navigate corridors let alone shoot anything. If you don't believe me change sensitivity on mouse from low to max and have fun getting dizzy.

b) TF2 actually runs fine either way, stutter (or tearing as it seems to be termed on the net) occurred on a couple of previous games (although no way near as bad as many seemed to have). I think you are right that Vysnc would have solved the problem on them, although I'm sure I tried it at the time. Maybe the problem was that Planetside ran at 300-600 fps Have set card to global Vysnc forced on (was App to choose previously) - think it over rides game, although in Vista pre Sp1 it doesn't apparently.

Manufacturer recommended I clean the card - its covered in dustbunnies. Guess that's the next job - sticking a bloody hoover in the case. Actually not a bad upgrade for engineer - Hoover - it cleans up stickies etc.

Thanks again - I really wasn't enjoying TF2 without my normal hardware.
--------------------
Tech sorta stuff to sort out USB - in the order I did it:

Swear, Tinker, Switch machine on and off a few times, try lotsa ports, connect serial keyboard & switch off annoying Bios No keyboard warning

Run virus & malware check with AVG 8 etc

Fall asleep

Remove vendor drivers for mouse and keyboard
Run device detective (free bit)
Update motherboard bios and misc hardware drivers

Run device manager the following way
Run -> cmd
set DEVMGR_SHOW_DETAILS=1
set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
start devmgmt.msc
Select Hidden devices
Delete all greyed out and <!> USB connections & HID under mouse and keyboard (and there were a lot)
[should run through safe mode if device still connected according to 1 source]
Deleted a bunch of others that were now redundant and no longer on machine

Swear at windows a bit, finally find a serial mouse that works and plug it in. Hooray can now navigate Windows easier.

Contact manufacturer - who insists that the following will work

"Click on the Run and type Regedit.
In regedit use the following path
Hkey_Local_Machine \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Current Version
Once you click on current version in the right hand windows you should find and entry for DevicePath right click it and select modify and enter C:\Windows\Inf and click ok . [Actually its c:\winxp\inf on mine - was %SystemRoot%\inf ]
Reboot the PC and try the USB device again."

It didn't.

Check Bios settings -
Set OS to detect Plug and Play rather than Bios (toggled this a bit beforehand in sheer desperation)
Check that Legacy USB is on (for serial mouse & keyboard - it was)
Check USB controller 2.0 is on (it was)

Still not working - %%$^£%*

Plug in USB/PCI card. Windows detects - sets up USB controller etc. Connect mouse - YAY - play TF2.

Die a lot

Correct settings

Still die a lot - but hey that's me

Try other ports - woot they are recognised and work first time

Keep fingers crossed