It appears I'm having success with a much older usb a to a cable, this is 99% certainly 15 years old so has to be USB1. Unfortunately the cable in question is rediculously short so extensive testing seems like more of a hassle than looking for anothe cable to try with, will update post with findings.
<edit>The second cable I found was the Vive Pro Link Box to computer cable and it did really well, 20 minutes of Vox Machinae did not kill it, no gray screens either. I consider this game as demanding as FO4VR, but more stable so it's better suited for testing.</edit>