Vive wireless adapter disconnects after a few minutes.

[Bon]

Guys! I've read all this forum + a few steam support pages.

And the easiest thing worked for me:  I can confirm that turning off the option "turn controller off after (x) amount of time" fixes the headset turning off after 5 minutes.

Super weird, but it works!!!

Here is a list of all suggestions found online, luckely the first one worked for me.

1. I can confirm that turning off the option "turn controller off after (x) amount of time" fixes the headset turning off after 5 minutes.
2. turn off ALL lighting on the room
3. OpenVR Advanced Settings
4. check steamvr / wireless 
5. https://forum.vive.com/topic/4650-vive-wireless-adapter-disconnects-after-a-few-minutes/?do=findComment&comment=33815
6. wireless settings "Connection Mode" so for giggles I set it to mode 3 / mode 2?
7. replace short usb-usb with long one to test if it’s the issue
8. usb battery cable
9. What height is your transmitter? Do you angle it slightly upwards?
10. software update of adapter
11. cooler fan mod on the wireless unit
12. rearranged my PCI-E cards (RTX 1080 & Vive Wireless Card). They used to be next to each other in the slots closest to the CPU. But now, I have the Vive Wireless card next to the CPU slot and then the GPU card now at the bottom of the motherboard furthest away from the CPU. 
13. removing overclocking fro my CPU/GPU made my Wireless a lot more stable
14. forced my motherboard bios to PCIe Gen 3 and also ran the PCIeGenConfig.exe program in the wireless application folder and set the toggle to "Disable" (https://forum.vive.com/topic/4650-vive-wireless-adapter-disconnects-after-a-few-minutes/?do=findComment&comment=32999)
15. 18W for OG and Pro
16. For giggles I hooked up the original link box for the cables via USB 3.0 and the power plug with nothing else attached and then installed the bluetooth drivers and setup for the lighthouse power to be controlled via Steam VR.  Tested that the lighthouses were powering up and down when starting and closing Steam VR and they were.
17. replace An RF Module (https://pdaspare.ru/catalogue/vive/wireless-adapter/54h20659-00m)
18. replace powerbank - Aukey brand, with 3 times the storage capacity.
19. rollback steam vr

Edited July 25, 2020 by Bon

[Tango87]

I've had the same issue since I've bought the adapter. I've determined it to be a hardware issue. The USB connection will lose loose power with even the slightest jiggle. I have no idea how to stabilize it. I've tried another cord and the same thing. I've used another power bank and it will still happen. The only way I don't lose connection is if I'm not jerking my body around too much which is very hard to do when playing a boxing VR game or anything that requires you to duck. At this point I've semi given up on the wireless adapter as a whole. It's poorly engineered and I'm not even going to attempt to use HTC support after seeing the horror stories in here. $200 lesson learned. If I ever figure out a fix I'll post in on here. I just need something to really jam the USB cables in so they don't jiggle. Some day I'll figure it out. Good luck everybody. 

[Tango87]

Boys I have a fix. For anybody who is out there with this issue, I have found a fix! This is going to seem like it is from left field but it works! For those who haven't read my previous post, I believe it's a hardware issue and not software. The USB cord juggles and it loses connection. So what I did to fix it will only cost you about 99 cents... Plumbers tape! Wrap the USB cord connection with a few layers of plumbers tape and issue appears to be resolved. I just tested it with some serious movement and did not have any disconnects. So try it out and see if it works for you. You want enough plumbers tape (on both ends of USB cord) so that it doesn't jiggle. So if you put some and it is still a little jiggly when connected then add a little more until it is stable. I put tape all the way up until about the last cm of the connector and it functions just fine. Give it a shot. 

[HackPerception]

@Tango87 - You might need to replace your USB-A -> USB-A cable eventually. The one that ships with the wireless adapter is flexible but sort of thin and can wear with use. You can purchase other aftermarket USB-A -> USB-A cables that are thicker and less flexible (you may feel the cable more as well) with the tradeoff that they're a little more resistant to damage from bending/flexing.

In our office (in the olden days when those used to be a thing), the stock USB-A cable would only last a few months due to heavy usage and due to people yanking of the cable and loading the entire weight of the battery on the cable.

[MrCamper]

So option "turn controller off after (x) amount of time" fixes the headset turning off after 5 minutes also for me. UFF.

But I have to write that this is so so sad from Vive developers. I had no problems with it on old computer maybe 6-7 months ago. Then after some vive updates it started to go off after 5 minutes. I tried almost all and only one way was - when this "problem" happened - plug cable from battery off and after 20 sec plug it back (steam vr and vive wireless was going still on). Then I can play for hours. One month ago I bought new computer and there was the bug little different. Maybe because new computer is really rocket, the "off situation after 5 minutes" lasted only a fec sec then the game continue. But I lost score etc. And I can not just unplug the cable and put it back. It did not work.

Today I was really upset so start again to find out some solution and I am very happy that I founded on steam discussion. 

This realy wird small option with controler off has such a big effect on this. Why there is no update for this bug yet??? 
The solution is almost 1 year old and it is still not fixed??
Wake up developers.
And when you will repairing this, you maybe could repair the color of charging diod on HTC controlers. It is maybe 3 years from the time when I read on some discusion that it will be solved with next update.
New controles from PRO kit is indicates charging also when they are fully charged. If you unplug them and plug them back to power then you see white color. But if you charge them without unplug you will never see that it is done.
Why you are not able to repair this for such a long time? 

Big thanks to all guys which are finding solution for various bugs and problems. Without you we never be happy with "not finished" stuff from HTC Vive developers...

[CMDRZOD]

I've had this issue for a very long time. Random disconnects. I tried all the fixes listed here. The controller timeout fix didn't work for me. The setting USB devices to never power off didn't help either. At least not the normal USB devices and hubs listed in device manager. 

 

This is what seems to have finally solved this for me:

Open device manager. Click view and then devices by connection. Find the PCI-E port that your card is attached to. My Intel PCI-E card is attached to Intel PCI Express Root Port #8

I set every device under this PCI-E Port to never power down to save power. This is the whole Intel Wireless VR Card, its software component listed here as well as the USB Root Hub. After disabling power saving on all of the devices that are part of the wireless PCI-E card I have not had a drop since. Screenshot below:

 

 

 

[HackPerception]

@CMDRZOD - That's amazing feedback. This is the type of hyper-specific stuff you can only really reproduce if you have a very specific hardware.
Can you share what your motherboard is just to add another data point for other users? Thanks

[CMDRZOD]

My Specs and config:

Asus Rampage V Extreme X99 motherboard

i7 6950x 10 core 4.4Ghz OC

32GB 3200Mhz 14-14-28 1T RAM 

RTX3090 (Just got this in January, was 1080Ti since 2018-19)

Windows 10 Pro x64 20H2 Build 19042.985

Monitor: 65HU9000 4k TV (2014) HDMI 2.0

Intel 750 1.2TB SSD PCI-E 4x

Aquantia AQC107 10GB Ethernet Adapter PCI-E 4x 

Like I said, I've had the random disconnect issue for a very, very long time. The fix above has solved the issue for me for about 10 hours of playtime so far. I applied this a few days ago. 

In my BIOS settings I've got my PCI-E set to Gen 3. Also I have ASPM PCI-E power saving disabled, in Windows power management as well the BIOS I believe. Besides this issue this PC works flawlessly. I currently have the latest Nvidia driver installed. I have been mostly free of the Nvidia issue that causes frame drops with newer graphics cards. Hope this helps others who run into issues.

[Helifax]

I literally got the Vive Wireless Adapter on Friday and was able to play a bit (around 30 minutes). I am using a Vive Pro (1 and waiting for Pro 2 and the Wireless Adapter Firmware to bump the resolution ^_^).
I started noticing the same thing yesterday and today. The funny thing, is that today on my first try, it cut-out with a Blue Screen after 5-6 minutes :))
I tried changing the PCIE slots, disabling Vive Pro camera, controllers and LCD shutdown, etc nothing made a difference. Sometimes it would work 1 hour and sometimes it would cut after 5 minutes.
This looked to me like a power issue and not on the HMD, because the LCDs or sound doesn't flicker or cuts, just the image goes blue.

Thanks for the detailed info, that makes sense ^_^ (I loled at the duct-tape approach :)) )
 

[groslala]

On 5/14/2021 at 9:45 PM, CMDRZOD said:

I've had this issue for a very long time. Random disconnects. I tried all the fixes listed here. The controller timeout fix didn't work for me. The setting USB devices to never power off didn't help either. At least not the normal USB devices and hubs listed in device manager. 

 

This is what seems to have finally solved this for me:

Open device manager. Click view and then devices by connection. Find the PCI-E port that your card is attached to. My Intel PCI-E card is attached to Intel PCI Express Root Port #8

I set every device under this PCI-E Port to never power down to save power. This is the whole Intel Wireless VR Card, its software component listed here as well as the USB Root Hub. After disabling power saving on all of the devices that are part of the wireless PCI-E card I have not had a drop since. Screenshot below:

 

 

 

Thank you CMDRZOD ! Seems to work for me as well. So random disconnects could just be a conflict between the PCI-E card and Windows power management after all...