TrackIR 5 takes a long time to start up

[horrgakx]

Hi all - my TrackIR 5 has started to take a long time to start up, ie. it takes several minutes for the IR LED's to come on. With the help of Mike's support I've updated the drivers without any effect, obviously I've tried different USB ports etc.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this?

Intel Core i7 3770 IVY Bridge, Quad Core (1155, 3.40GHZ, 8MB Cache)
AMD HD7970 3GB Graphics Card
16GB (4 x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz DDR3
Asus P8Z77-V LX2
Solid State Drive SATA III

[MikeWitham]

Hello horrgakx,

When we updated the software and drivers did I also have you go through the registry and remove any instances of TrackIR and NaturalPoint? Usually a slow boot time is due to a corrupt registry entry, a failing unit, or a software conflict. Have you tried disabling the firewall and antivirus to see if the boot time decreases?

Regards,

[horrgakx]

Thanks for your reply. I manually removing ALL references to "NaturalPoint" and "TrackIR" in the Registry. Then I rebooted and started the 5.2.2 installer which immediately copied the driver before the rest of the software. However now when I start the software it's not picking up the camera AT ALL now

I have tried going back to the 5.1.3 drivers but it's just the same. Do you think I've destroyed something by removing everything in the Registry?

A shame as I've had the TrackIR all the way from the TrackIR v3 and upgraded to the pro versions and they've all been reliable and now my '5 is playing up

[MikeWitham]

horrgakx,

Please create a ticket with me at help.naturalpoint.com and we can set up something. I'm curious about the problem you are having and want to get you up and running.

Regards,

[horrgakx]

Thanks Mike , I've been talking to you on email about this already, name Dave Wilson.

[horrgakx]

Ok so I tried the following and have come to a conclusion;

I installed the software on my wife's Win8.1, the software started, the camera is on but the IR LED's do not come on at all. The camera is working because I can point it at a heat source such as a lamp and I can see the heat source in the TrackIR software.

On my own Win8.1 PC (the one where the TrackIR software wouldn't detect the camera at all) I messed about with uninstalling & installing the TrackIR software and I have now got to a point where the camera works but the IR LED's are not lit at all. Again I can tell the camera works by pointing it at a heat source.

So, on my TrackIR 5 it looks like the IR LED's have been on the way to failing and have now failed. Any ideas for this issue Mike please?

[MikeWitham]

horrgakx,

Based off of our other conversation I would say that sounds correct. It is likely the board has been slowly failing and finally just failed completely. The only idea I have is to replace the TrackIR at this point.

Regards,

[horrgakx]

Mike - my existing TrackIR has faulty LED's (although the camera was working) as we established. This means that the reflective Vector Clip (baseball cap reflectors) no-longer worked because there was no IR light to reflect back.

Today I received my brand new TrackIR 5 which came with the Vector Clip and also a Track Clip Pro. Total was £194.58. I've unpacked it and find that the Track Clip Pro comprises of IR emitters. I wondered if the Track Clip Pro would work with my old unit. And guess what - it does.

So, I've just spent nearly £200 when I could get it working by buying the Track Clip Pro at less than a quarter of that.

I'm bitterly disappointed. How come the Track Clip Pro was never suggested as something to try?
I'm so upset I want to request someone in authority from Natural Point contact me personally please.

[Seth Steiling]

Hi Dave,

Sorry for any confusion on this topic! Hopefully I can clear some of that up, and in the process, alleviate concerns about why we've made the recommendation that we did.

The short story is that our support team has diagnosed that this unit's main board is likely failing. The LEDs not working is the first of what we estimate will be several component failures over time—all as a result of the failure of that board. It's likely that the LEDs went first, because of how power is allocated on the device.

While using the active LED TrackClip PRO bypasses this problem for now, if the image sensor is the next victim of a failing FPGA, you'll be back to square one with the device—no tracking data. Given this probable outcome, we couldn't in good faith recommend the TrackClip PRO as a real solution to your problem.

Without disassembling the unit here at our HQ, we can't totally guarantee our diagnosis, and it's possible that the TCP + TIR 4 combo will work for you for years to come. But, we feel that this is unlikely, and given this we've provided the best recommendation that we can with the unit still out in the field.

[horrgakx]

Thanks for your reply.