USB Device not recognised.

[Yelrow]

HI Mousehole, i use a powered usb 4 way hub, did not know you were not supposed to, only did so, as with mouse and speakers did not have enough usbs onmy laptop. As you say, there is reasonable reliability, which i improved by stopping the laptop going

 

to sleep. Now once connected, its stays that way. There is still a little bit of hit and miss, when you turn on, and sure, plug and play, would solve this. You are lucky you can read your com ports, on a french machine, you cant. Windows france has several

 

differences, and this is one of them. Il n . exist pas, (it aint there ). john

[gilbo2]

I thought I should find this old post and resurect it!

My computer died a few weeks ago and so I had to get a new one. Like a lot of computers these days the blue USB3 ports are becoming more and more popular.

As has been reported previously in this thread, I could not get the eLink to work when plugged into a USB3 port but when I connected the elink via a 4 port USB 2 hub, it works fine.

There is definatly a USB 3 compatibility issue which I hope Hornby will fix soon to prevent new users having the same problem.

[RAINESCOLIN]

Have had this problem since day 1 of adding E Link, have to power down ELink by removing power supply cable from ELink and then removing USB cable from Laptop,Reinsert power supply after about 10 seconds then reinserting USB cable,this I have to do on several attempts before laptop will recognise ELink 

[Yelrow]

do you have a 4 amp transformer. Those of us with same problem, found this considerably helped, although,  there is a theory, as yet unresolved, that says it goed deeper than that. john

[dennisf]

Just got my elink, it connected OK on my win 8.1 laptop, then it downloaded an update and doesn't connect at all.

I only have two ports, both usb3,  so I will have to try a hub to get rid of the "the last usb device connected wasn't recognised (couldn't read the device descriptor?)" error.

[Fishmanoz]

Nothing deep about this John, just two equally likely scenarios: either the 1 amp supply is faulty or the eLink won't work as designed with a correctly operating 1 amp supply. In either case it is a warranty issue. 

The fact that it works with a 4 amp does nothing to determine this one way or the other. 

[Fishmanoz]

Dennis, can I suggest you report this to RM Support by emailing them from within the Help window of RM. That way, if everyone with the problem does this, they will get a sense of the magnitude of the problem. 

[gilbo2]

dennisf, I would check the COM port is set to the same number in both Device Manager and eLink settings first.

[dennisf]

Checked that and its OK.

I have tried a USB2 hub with no succes.

I have tried a lenovo onelink dock and it sometimes works on its USB2 ports.

It appears to work on my wifes medion netbook pc but its far too slow to be used.

[Fishmanoz]

Have you emailed RM Support from within the Help window of RM?

[96RAF]

Too good to be true...

After working fine since day 1 about a year ago my eLink (Controller B) is now reporting 'failed to handshake with the Win 8.1 PC'.

Tried the RM on-screen suggested fix several times without any luck.

Tried swapping Elite and eLink from Controllers A & B to B & A and vice versa and the problem followed the eLink.

Swapped out eLink for a spare Elite and it all worked with 2 x Elites, so that proves the USB3 ports and cables are OK as far as the eLink.

Just waiting for a reply from HRMS....

[RB51]

I await the response with interest - this is the problem I had and just dumped the e-link and moved to an Elite for trouble free playtimes. R-

[Yelrow]

RAF96, HI, DID YOU READ MY POST ON TOTAL COMMITMENT. Hornby support took control of my laptop, and made various alterations. updating to  different EU, version, where you can choose your language. EG, it would appear location, is/was part of the problem. Since then, it has been 95% better. Might i suggest this may be the way to go, john

[dennisf]

Yes..

 

quote>

if you have checked and the USB3 ports are backwardly compatible then it must work with eLink.  To put it in context, we have many thousands of these units in use around the world and this is the first potential instance we have heard of regarding possible USB port incompatibility.

<unquote

 

It appears I am the only one with a problem.

[RB51]

I can't remember where it came up now - might have been on here (most likely) or another forum, but there did seem to be an issue with Dell laptops, which is what I have. Is that what you are using RAF? If not and you can get a conversation with Mark in customer service, he has some sort of lead function there, you will get patient, diligent guidance in plain terms. As I said earlier the fragility of the connection was getting in the way of my enjoyment, so I changed the interface. R-

[gilbo2]

You are certainly NOT the only one, you just have to read this thread to realise there is an issue with USB3 on some set-ups!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's so frustarting this kind of feedback.

[Fishmanoz]

Dear HRMS, for a start see immediately above. If you were to check the RM forum with a search on USB3, you will find more then just a few instances of people reporting problems with these, and at least some saying it worked better on a USB2 hub connected to a USB3 port, despite the lack of logic for such an arrangement. 

I realise that not every one of these instances will actually be the port, other factors are likely to be involved. However, it would seem that USB3 compatibility is problematic. 

[HornbyRailMasterSupport]

We base our support and responses on customers we deal with directly.  Using this method we can use process of elimination to ascertain what the likely cause of a problem is.  It is not the same when a customer uses this forum as there is no detailed trail to the root cause of the problem.  We have had only one instance of a situation where a customer thinks their USB 3 ports may be the cause of the problem - although this has not been proved conclusively.

When a company makes a device with, say, a USB 1 or USB 2 interface, it is assumed that a PC with a USB 3 port will be backwardly compatible with USB 1 and USB 2 devices.  This is the norm.  Unfortunately, we cannot monitor every PC made to work out whether the implementation of USB 3 ports on a particular PC is not 100% backwardly compatible.  Fortunately, the vast majority of USB 3 ports do work correctly with all USB interfaces.

The logic regarding a USB hub may not actually be that daft ... depending on the hub, of course.

Generally, we do not recommend the use of USB hubs when connecting a DCC controller because there are a large number of cheap hubs which just do not work properly, especially passive hubs (no external power supplied).  We found this out the hard way early on and indeed our support staff have experience of this with other devices not connected to model railways.

Having said that, a good USB 3 hub, with ports offering USB 1 and USB 2 compatibility may actually resolve the issue on those PCs whose USB 3 ports are not backwardly compatible with earlier USB specifications.  Fortunately, this appears to affect a tiny minority of users.

Unfortunately, this level of hardware is beyond our control so it is a question of trying the best solution and we cannot recommend a particaulr USB hub.  It is probably best to go by recommendation or reviews on the Internet.

[gilbo2]

So what help can be given to dennis and other customers who only have USB3 ports and are struggling?

[96RAF]

@everyone

HRMS nailed my problem.

Prior to starting RM on my HP desktop there had been an update of iTunes (yes I know its useless but I need it to talk to Apple kit). Usually these updates ask for a PC restart. This one didn't. Then when I started RM I got the handshake problem which I reported in using the internal system. At days end when I shut down the PC I got the 'do not switch off...configuring Windows xx%, ' dialogue. That should have rung alarm bells.

At cold boot this morning all is well with RM, so it must have been the unfinished update in iTunes fouling RM up.

My USB3 set up by the way is a PCi card into the mobo and it has worked flawlessly to date.

So if all else fails try a cold start. 

[Yelrow]

RAF 96, Thats great, cant have a fellow elinker in trouble. Since they took over and updated me to europe, mine has been good. E$ven better, i have finally managed to make Switch Pilot work, so have 8 working points. Need a new unit for remaining 5, and an looking around, john

[RB51]

Excellent news John - nice to know your eLink issue has been sorted and you are well on the way to a fully functioning point set-up. That's got to be worth a glass or two? R-

[Augustus Caesar]

I've just been taking note of this thread in the last day or so plus the latest thread which continues the saga of USB3 ports, compatibility and all else that seems to have people coffuffled on this issue of getting Win8.8.1 to work with their e-Link system etc.

Just for the record RAF when downloading any driver any version of Windows can have other drivers stopped during installation. The system may or may not ask for a restart but when you do eventually restart the system the message you give above about not turning off the system while updates are progressing is quite normal (as you'll probably know) but my advice is that when updates are put into a system, whether or not a restart is required, it is ALWAYS best to simply restart the system anyway. Your example is a classic one... download driver, no restart asked for, carry on using said software or device and then suddenly when you go to use something else... chaos. When a device downloads a driver for itself it is extremely unlikely that the device being updated will know what it is interfering with (in your case RM) and it may just be adding code to a Windows DLL file which is required by other programs. These are direct link library files and any program can use any amount of them. They are shared files which is important so if one program changes its values or parameters then another program cannot use it until the system is restarted. So, after each update no matter whether the system asks for it or not, just do a restart anyway. This way the system is stable after each install.

Your message about not turning off the system is a giveaway as you say because it PROVED the system needed a restart even though the download and install did not advise as such.

Now you may know most, if not all, of that anyway RAF but I mention this for others who may have similar problems.

[Augustus Caesar]

A couple of small points not raised before on USB 3...

You can use USB 2 devices on this port and they should be backward compatible. It is rare for something not to work on these ports unless there a power defincieny on the device being connected. USB 3 uses one third of the power of USB 2 and for a USB 3 port to be truly USB 3 it MUST achieve a data trasnsfer rate of 5Gbps and no less otherwise the USB 3 standard cannot be granted to that hardware with the port attached... like a motherboard for example.

Some older hardware will not work on these new ports simply because of the architecture of their build and how it utilises the power taken to drive the unit.

Having said that the e-Link should work because the technology is new enough and USB 3 has been around for a few years now. I am about to go and setup my e-Link on a laptop with Windows 8.1 installed and no other software that will get in the way of any part of the installation so it should work first time. I will report back here or on the other thread related to this one with Win8 and will tell of any issues and how I resolved them or not.

I'm pretty good at getting to grips with Windows and its anomolies so keep your fingers x'd and let's see what happens in the next day or so....

[gilbo2]

eLink firmware 1.05 fixed USB3 problems at my end so would also check your at that revision level.