SP2 Killed My Sidewinder Joystick!

[Joe DiFonzo]

After installing Windows XP SP2, my Sidewinder Precision2 USB joystick
stopped working. The stick I know is fine because I plugged it into my
laptop (still running SP1) and it was activated straight away.

I tried plugging it into every USB port on the SP2 machine to no avail. The
ports are working fine as I have a Microsoft USB optical mouse and a Canon
scanner plugged into them with no problems. Also all of the device manager
entries are clear (no ! or ? or X) and all USB hubs show that they are
'working properly'.

Weirdly, when I plug the stick in it is not giving an error about not
finding a proper driver or anything like that, just *nothing* happens when I
plug it in. I would have expected the little balloon saying "Found new
hardware..." to pop up. (This is what happens when I plug it into the
SP1-equipped laptop.)

The stick worked fine until I installed SP2. I used it to play BF Vietnam
almost every day.

Has anyone else seen this problem? What gives?

Thanks in advance,
Joe

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

Can you try going into Device Manager and uninstall each of your USB
controllers. Then Scan for new Hardware. I have seen a couple cases so far
such as you describe and that has fixed the other two. Hope that helps. If
it doesn't can you send me a dxdiag report of your system and I will look to
see if it mentions anything that might be wrong.

DXDIAG:
1. Click Start -> Run
2. Type "dxdiag" without the quotes and press Ok.
3. In the DirectX Diagnostic tool click "Save All Information..."

Joshua Smith
DirectInput and OpenGL Test Labs
Microsoft

 

[Joe DiFonzo]

OK, this just gets more weird.

I unplugged all USB devices on the system. Then I de-installed all of the
usb devices via device manager. Then I restarted the system. Windows booted
and reinstalled all the USB devices/root hubs. Everything looked fine.

Then I plugged stuff back in. First the monitor (which includes a hub with
the mouse attached to that). Hub and mouse were discovered and worked fine.
Then the joystick, which was discovered and worked fine. (!) Then the
scanner, which was discovered and worked fine. Then a USB SD card reader,
which was discovered and worked fine. Wonderful, right?

I tested the joystick in the Game Controllers control panel applet and all
of the axes and buttons were working well.

Then I thought I had better try to shut down and re-start the system to see
if it will boot up ok with everything plugged in like before. When it came
back up, all looked normal BUT the joystick was not showing up again!!

So I went through the process again: Unplug everything, delete devices,
reboot, replug. Well this time the joystick does NOT get recognized when I
plug it in. So basically I'm back where I was.

I know this sounds like the stick itself is no good (intermittent electrical
connection?), so I try it on another PC that's still running SP1. I plug it
in and... nothing.

So it must have just been dumb luck that it worked on my laptop yesterday
and for a few minutes today after resetting the USB devices.

Thanks for all of the help, and sorry for wasting your time.

 

[pjp]

Sure it's not simply all the devices power requirement(s) exceed the power
available via the USB port(s)?

Especially if it's a Logitech Rumblepad, e.g. it requires 500Ma which maxes
out USB1.x port.

 

[Joshua Smith [MSFT]]

Good point pjp. Can you try just connecting the game device and test it a
little bit by itself? If it works fine until you plug in the other stuff you
know you are probably just under powered. Also, no question is a waste of
time.

Joshua Smith
DirectInput and OpenGL Test Labs
Microsoft
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