Hello all,

Just lately I have been experiencing a strange, intermitent but persistent problem.

Yesterday, I did a flight from YBBN to YSSY in my Duke 60, Everything went extremely well and I landed on Runway 34L and did a right hand turn off the runway. halfway through the turn, I lost my mouse and keyboard, as well as all my rudder, yoke quadrant controls. As a result I could not centre my steering and just kept going round in circles regardless of any controller input. Everything else re the Sim was normal ... scenery and frame rate etc appear normal. Because the mouse does not work I cannot exit P3D except by using the on/off button on the computer and rebooting.

I am using a USB Logitech mouse and keyboard combination.

I rolled back drivers for the mouse and for my Saitek controllers, checked my controller assignments and Axis settings to ensure no conflicts and attempted the flight again.

This time I got to overhead Casino before the same thing happened, requiring a reboot.

So I did a system restore (back one month) and prior to my problems but the same thing is occurring. I then did a Speccy temperature check during the subsequent flight and noted that temp of the CPU was bouncing (I think Normally) between 50 and 65 degrees depending on flight conditions. 60 - 70 degrees is considered hot but acceptable for my i7 2600k (not overclocked) The temp of my 1080ti GPU never exceeded 50 degrees and was very consistent on 45 degrees (which I believe is normal)

I am fairly sure that this is not a P3D problem but was hoping someone here may have experienced a similar problem and can help me out here.

As there has been a new P3D update, and despite my belief that this is not a P3D problem, I was/am  considering a completely fresh install with the new update. This is timely only and not considered a solution for my problem, but one never knows.

If, I opt for the reinstall, I will have some further enquiries as well.

As an aside and my problem brings this to mind, I read with interest, the other day, a topic regarding when you dont fly in the sims. No one came up with the very obvious response of "When you are tweaking and/or fixing the "@!$%$&^*(&(*_)()*(^&%" sim/scenery/aircraft or utilities" I say this in jest so please do not take offence. 

Hoping someone can help.

Regards to all

Tony

 

 

Never mind...

Edited November 29, 20187 yr by MDFlier

MDFlier,

Thanks for your response mate. I really do appreciate your reply.

I do not, however, think this is my solution and mainly because turning off the Autopilot is not really applicable at 27000 feet above Casino, which is just one of my stated scenerios. In any case, I normally turn off A/P at about 2000 feet on approach in any aircraft so in my first stated scenerio (after landing 34L at YSSY) Autopilot was off anyway. Another thing is that once the lockup occurs, there is no way I can turn off the autopilot (or anything else) so turning off the A/P is not going to restore or solve anything.

Lastly, the Autopilot is most definitely P3D related and I really do not believe that P3D is the problem in the first place.

I do know where you are coming from though, as my normal first reaction to any unexpected problem in the cockpit is to turn off the autopilot. I do not know if this is actually a reallife situation but I am a self taught pilot with a really, really bad instructor LOL I learnt this from the old lear 45 in FS9 which almost always went into stall mode after take off after Autopilot was turned on.

Thanks again though mate.

Regards

Tony

Hello again,

Well, not a huge response but here is an update.

As suspected, this is NOT a P3D problem. I was watching a movie last night and the same thing happened requiring a hard reboot.

I then went into Google and most of the advice related to HDD going to sleep.  Why or  how this is related to mouse/keyboard lock up is beyond me, but I faithfully checked all my SSDs (through Control panel) and USB external HDDs to redetermine that they were all either power disabled or set to "never"

Have we got any Windows experts here that can point me in another direction?

I am going to disconnect all my USB drives and try flying again. By the way, all my USB drives are power USB devices and all my hubs are powered hubs and even my Saitek controllers are connected to a powered hub with the yoke and connected throttle on its own power supply.

My OS is Win 7 Ultimate 64bit. If anyone requires further information pleas, just ask.

Regards

Tony

 

You need to go into your power settings and make sure the system isn't allowed to turn USB ports off to save power. 

Google it - it's a very common problem.  And it's one you will have to fix over and over again because Microsoft in its infinite wisdom keeps changing the setting back in various Windows updates.

 

 

Charles,

Already done mate.

For clarification, and for the benefit of those who do not know how to do this, the procedure was as follows: (Windows 7...Win 8 or 10 may be different)

1. Control Panel/System and Security VIA Windows key and type into the search panel "powercfg.cpl"

2. select "change plan settings"/ balanced (this is the first of five plans in my system)

3. select Change advanced power settings after ensuring setttings for turnoff the display and put the computer to sleep are both set to never

4. Under advanced settings scroll to Hard disk and doubleclick .. double click Turnj off hard disk after.. setting to never. Tip. this is normally set to 20 or 15 mins.

     Reduce the minutes until Never is displayed ... click Apply and OK to return to the next drive and repeat for each.

Please also note that going just via Control Panel will only display one setting. For all settings to be displayed you have to go via the Windows/powercfg.cpl

I do this on a fairly regular basis and hope that this is the correct way to do it. If not can somebody please correct me and for the benefit of other people who are unaware of this procedure.

I believe that I still have my original problem though so what I have outlined may well be incorrect, if in fact the problem is a power saving one. I am very aware that this is quite an extensive problem and as I have already said, nearly all the google references to this point to power saving.

Regards to all

Tony