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My SmartNAV 4 is regularly losing tracking. It is completely intermittent. It'll be working fine for hours then suddenly, it loses tracking. Then it might do it again twice in 10 minutes. The greenlight goes out completely. There is no red light, it's just going dark. I did have a SmartNAV 3 for years, which never had this problem, on the same computer, plugged into the same USB port and I have been and still am using Windows XP. I did try switching to a different USB port, it didn't make any difference. The only solution I have found is to close the SmartNAV software (Version: 3.20.035 Posted: July 25, 2008) and then restart it.
I don't know if this is a problem with the SmartNAV 4 itself or if it's a problem with the drivers? It seems to be happening more and more often and I'm concerned it's an electronic problem with the unit itself. Is anyone else having this problem? Any recommendations from tech support?

Is this a laptop, or desktop system?

When this occurs, are you seeing anything on the Tracking screen?

Are you plugging in directly to the system, or are you using a hub?

Have you tried turn off any kind of power save feature for your USB ports?

In the "Device Manager" you can right click the "USB Root Hub"(s), that show, and then select properties. On the power management tab, uncheck the box that allows the computer to turn off the USB port to save power (i.e. uncheck the box). Sometimes that has an impact on the connectivity of the devices.

This is in a desktop system;
3.15 gigahertz Intel Core2 Extreme
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X38T-DQ6
3328 Megabytes Installed Memory
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3

Tracking screen is black when this happens.

It's being plugged directly into a USB port on the motherboard

There is no power saving features available on the motherboard.

I have checked the device manager found some USB boxes were checked. I have unchecked all power saver boxes. I will see if this makes any difference. I will post an update if this seems to fix the problem.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Still having the same problem, no change at all. What should I try next?

Is the object still being tracked, on the tracking screen, when it stops responding?

No there is nothing on the tracking screen at all.

OK, if the object is no longer being detected, when it stops tracking, is there still a tracking object within the field of view of the camera?

There is nothing at all in the window of the smartnav software tracking window, it's just a blue square with no objects at all.

Do the IR led lights go out?

If you place an object directly in fromnt of the camera, does it detect it?

Do you have gray scale tracking enabled?

Do the IR led lights go out?
IR red lights stay on, but top green light goes dark.

If you place an object directly in front of the camera, does it detect it?
No

Do you have gray scale tracking enabled?
Yes, the Smartnav will not track steady with it off. When gray scale tracking is off, green dot in tracking window shakes and jumps all over and so does cursor on screen.