flashing grey screen

[Vildan]

He everyone, my turn to show a lot of information ;)

 

 

HMD Serial and date of purchase: s/n FA72NAB00209 Vive was bought in April 2017, made 02/2017

 

Grey Screen: does  it flicker or stay solid grey?  Solid grey

 

When problem began (more or less): In May 2017. I described the problem in my comments here

 "About environment wrote before "I made a test. Firstly I started play in game (battle dome) before game temperature of front panel Vive (around the camera) was 28-32 Co, after 15 min it became 38-41, in that moment the flashing started. Then, I left Vive (without turning it off) close to cold accumulator for 30 min. After that the temperature was 23-26. I played the same game for 30 min (a little bit more, than last time, because the start temperature was lower) and flashing came back. I checked the temperature of the front panel, it was 38-41."
During this test nothing else around me changed, there wasn't any other impacts or something else, which can make the flashing."

Today the temprature in my room was about 27-28 C, and I could play 1 hour or a little bit more. Ofter the flashing started, the temp of front pannel was 39 - 40 C. My CPU temp was 65 С and GPU was 80 C

 

Your location: Russia, Tyumen 

 

OS Version: Windows 10 , ver 1703 (r15063.483)

Computer Make/Model or Motherboard if homebuilt:

 Asus P8H77-V LE , CPU Core i5 3570

 

RAM: 24

 

Networking or other cards plugged in to motherboard: 

 Reaktek internal network, usb pci card (but i bought it after the problem started and it didn't help)

 

Graphics Card:  Asus 1080 Ti Turbo . Driver Nvidia 384.76

 

General Computing Environment and Set up: 1 Monitor via DisplayPort, 1 Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows, Asus Bluetooth usb receiver (i tried to dismiss it, but id didin't help)

 

Steam Version: beta

 

VR Home Beta enabled/disabled: enabled

 

Viveport installed/not installed: installed ver 1.0.8889 (r1040)

 

Oculus or revive or other VR environment installed:  No

 

Photo of the room your vive is in: 

 

HTC, how the progress of finding the solvation to this problem? 

 

 

 

[AGR-13]

Hi everybody (just a copy / paste of a reddit post - I know you know this is a overheating problem)

 

I think I know the problem. I struggled with this 100% same issue now for days and I "tried everything" ... nothing helped.
But a few hours ago I checked my cables on the Vive side (not the box) and: they are extremely hot! You can bearely touch them.
So I simply went to my freezer, took a frozen coolpad (for injuries) and put it directly on the black front of the Vive. All issues went away immediately and they didn't return as long as I used the pad.
After around 15-30min without pad, the issue returns. And it immediatly disappears when you mount the ice pad.
To be sure it's not a (by the pad) covered sensor I tested it also with something the same size as the pad - then no effect to the issue. Use the icepad - no issue immediately.

This da** thing just turns too hot!! It's not the base stations, it loses. It seems to go nuts by overheating!

 

Not acceptable workaround:

Why it happens in seating postion? - no answer to that. But maybe the seating position games like Elite or EVE: Valkyrie have extremely heavy graphics to render and maybe this affects overheating more...

But it is obviously an overheating issue. Not sure, if this is a HW defect or a design problem. 

 

Could you guys do me a favor and test it, too? 

 

- what can we do? Change the headset? Or has it to be repaired?

[jagibson]

Thank you to those that have responded to the information requests.  I'm putting all of the responses together and will follow up with next steps.  If others experiencing similar issues have not yet posted the info request, please do so!

 

Thank you,

 

John

[alubaking]

 

I am in the seating position too but like I replied in the previous comment, I have no such problem . I turned on AC tho. (Room temp was 26~28 degrees I believe)

 

[MartinMarty]

---

...

Could you guys do me a favor and test it, too? 

 

 

I reported a similar discovery recently.

[AGR-13]

 

Option

 

 

HMD Serial and date of purchase:

HMD S/N: FA6BXJJ00060 - purchased on 2017-01-11

Grey Screen: does  it flicker or stay solid grey?

- after 15-30min it first starts flickering more and more and sometimes it stays grey for 5 to 10 seconds. 

- in the SteamVR it shows that the basestations are grey - sometimes one, then the other, sometimes both. Even when both are grey it sometimes keep on tracking (witch is impossible). this happens only without controllers are online.

- If the controllers are online, everything keep green in the SteamVR, even the tracking problem starts the same time after 15-30min

When problem began (more or less):

- around start of July 2017 when I finished my new PC build the issue started. Could have happened also before, but I'm not sure, because I didn't play a lot of Elite. What I know is, that in the beginning after the purchase on the older computer (ASUS Maximus VI Extreme / GTX 980 Ti) I was able to play EVE: Valkyrie for hours without any issues. But then it was January and room temp was around 22-25 degrees. Not sure if this had an effect. 

actual PC: 

Your location:

- Bern, Switzerland

OS Version: please provide actual version (build etc) by typing "winver" in the run command

- Win 10 Pro Version 1703 (Build 15063, 483)

Computer Make/Model or Motherboard if homebuilt:

- ASUS Maximus IX APEX

RAM:

- G.SKILL Trident Z RGB, 32GB (F4-3600C17D-32GTZR)
2x 16GB, DDR4-DIMM, PC4-28800 (3600MHz), CL17-19-19-39-2N, Kühlkörper • Low Voltage (1.35V)/Intel XMP 2.0/LED

Networking or other cards plugged in to motherboard: 

- Bluetooth ASUS BT400 Adapter

Graphics Card: make/model any addtional built in graphics as well. Current driver version.

- ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
- Driver Version 382.53

- Monitor lg 34um95 3440x1440 

General Computing Environment and Set up: 

- Exsys 7x USB 3.0 Hub (USB ext.)

- 2x Farbwerk LED Control (USB int)

- 1x USB 2.0 x7 Aquacomputer Hubby7 internal USB Hub

- 1x Aquacomputer Aquaero 6 PRO

Steam Version: beta or public release

- beta (also tested with public - same result)

VR Home Beta enabled/disabled:

- enabled (also tested with disabled - same result)

Viveport installed/not installed: state which version if installed by going to 

- installed, Ver. 1.0.8889 (r1076)

Oculus or revive or other VR environment installed:

- Oculus revive was installed on the old computer, but not on this one

Photo of the room your vive is in: If you can it would be good for us to see how the physical layout of the room your vive is in is set up. You can post publicly if you wish or send via PM to myself or @Synthesis or @VibrantNebula.

(Foto will send directly)

-> this is a screenshot taken when the issue is not happening. When it happens, then there is one or both base stations not visible. 

General:

- connected by HDMI

- room temp is around 28-30 degrees Celcius

- I tested with different USB ports - same issue

- Disabled every software and service, that could affect the system - same issue

- tested a lot of options in the SteamVR - same issue

Workaround:

- the ONLY workaround I found - and it is 100% reliable is put a cold ice pack directly on the Vive. (a not-cold thing with the same size didn't change the issue - tested this to be sure it's not the covering of the sensors)

 

 

Reproducing the error: 

- see the following thread on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/6e5jne/base_stations_losing_connection_while_playing/ 

-> it describes it very well and suits also my experience. Vive in seated position, playing Elite Dangerous, beeing always on the border of the chaperone.  But repositioning of the lighthouses didn't help. 

 

Last thing: it IS a overheating problem. no matter how it's happening. It's obvious. 

 

 

 

[AGR-13]

---

wrote:

---

...

Could you guys do me a favor and test it, too? 

 

 

I reported a similar

discovery

recently.

---

 

Thanks MartinMarty - Just wanted to know if the issue also immediately disappears if you put cold on the Vive.

[OutpostVFX]

I've been troubleshooting the same issue for the past 3 months. After ruling out environmental or software issues (by cross-checking with a problem-free headset and problem-free environment), I sent my headset to repair. Twice. Both times it came back, it started flashing gray after 20-40 minutes of first use.

 

In the meanwhile we got another vive headset which works perfectly, so I doubt it's a software/environment issue... I just want both headsets to be reliably used for our technical development needs.

 

1) Faulty vive was manufactured 2016/11. New vive manufactured 2017/2.

2) Started experiencing problems May 5th 2017.

3) Environmental factors - have some reflective surfaces in play area that don't cause issues to the second vive.

4) N/A

5) N/A

[Aidarpro]

HTC, what news? Something have you done for solved or searching it?

[Aidarpro]

Outpost, Thank you, for your post. It's very valuable information! What are you going to do with Faulty vive?