I'm posting this because I thought it might be useful to others. I have read through this forum multiple times and most of the MCE literature that comes with the software and never found anything that addressed my specific issue. After hours and hours of searching online, trying different configurations and much frustration, I found the solution to my problem.

 

Problem: MCE would work fine for a period of time, but rarely a full flight. Sometimes it would fail 7-8 times in one flight. By fail, I mean that MCE would no longer hear my audio instructions. MCE was still active, monitoring and such, but neither my FO or ATC could hear me. I would check my sound and speech settings in Windows 7 and everything seemed to be working fine with my microphone headset. I tried multiple configurations within MCE, Windows and FSX to try and solve the problem, but to no avail. I would always have to run Kill MCE and restart the program mid-flight.

 

Solution: A week into this project and I was still searching online for a solution. I ended up on a gaming forum (for Playstation, not computers) and not for FSX, but a player was having an issue with his microphone headset very similar to mine with his Playstation. His solution to the problem ended up being my solution to the problem--not enough power was being provided from my computer's USB to keep the headset operating within MCE, solved by installing a powered USB hub.

 

To many experienced gamers, this may be a more obvious solution than it was to me, who had never owned or used a gaming headset prior to my purchase of MCE. I also happened to buy one with an in-line amp, needed even more power to operate from the computer's USB port.

 

I now have my headset, joystick and TrackIR all running through the powered USB hub and everything is working together perfectly. Again, I'm posting this because their may be others who are unaware that their computer may not be providing enough power through the USB to keep the headset functioning properly. Personally, I was even less likely to consider this as a problem because I have a new "gaming" pc that's loaded with the latest and greatest hardware.

 

Hopefully this may help someone else with similar issues. I remember having issues on my old computer when my joystick would suddenly stop responding, which I thought was just a USB power setting issue on the computer, but I still had problems with it from time to time. I would suspect that a powered USB hub may also have remedied that situation.

 

Sadly, I've been using MCE for a week now and have not even had a chance to start playing around with the many things it can do within FSX because I've spent all my time troubleshooting my mic connection issue. Now I can really start to dig in to all the great things MCE can bring to my FSX experience and I hope no one else has to waste the time and go through the frustration that I have in the past week.

Thanks for posting this helpful hint. Another problem that can cause this or similar problems is if the USB port is set to switch off when inactive to save power. I didn't even realise there was a setting for this until it happened to me, but it can cause all sorts of addon hardware devices to stop working after a period. So best to go into Device Manager and set all the USB ports to never switch off.

That's a good point DickB. I find in almost every FSX or addon forum, there are numerous discussions about the USB power settings, but I don't think I've ever seen a single one about using a powered USB hub... not sure why that is because I assume it would be helpful for a lot of people. In any case, if the USB power settings on the computer don't solve the issue, as in my case, the powered USB hub just might be the ticket.

Thanks for sharing.

 

I would personally avoid connecting to USB Hub, any device that transfers a lot of data continuously.

 

I'm surprised you managed to get TrackIR and USB headset(which has it's own power hungry audio device built-in) running from the hub, considering they woud share the same USB port.

 

I would connect the printer (even scanner) and other USB devices to USB hub and plug TrackIR and USB headset straight to the back of the PC to different USB ports, unless you're running out of USB ports..

I think it's probably a really good plan to plug a powered USB hub into every USB port (which, looking at my current setup, is actually pretty much what I have ended up doing !) Not a cheap option of course :-)