Good evening, I'm at my wits' end. When I started up this evening, logging in through TeamViewer, everything seemed to be working fine. I took an image of Saturn, as it was still twilight and I was just making sure all was well. Then the ethernet connection on the computer went down. I drove in to the observatory and rebooted the machine. Ethernet back up. But now it won't connect to the CCD. I've tried plugging it in to several different ports, power cycling, I climbed up to the scope and tried reseating the USB cable where it connects to the camera. All no good. When the connection is made to the computer, it says "Device not working properly". The device manager says "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)". Even though it worked fine an hour ago, I went ahead and checked the drivers, and the driver checker says they're up to date. The LED on the back of the camera is on, and when I turn the power on, I can hear the filter wheel click, as normal. Neither TheSkyX nor CCDOps can connect to it. The computer is a Hewlitt Packard HPE-470F running Windows 10. The USB ports are all USB 2.0, and swapping out the cable really isn't an option, because to keep the range of motion of the telescope, the cable needs to thread through the mount, three meters down to the floor, about three meters under the floor, and then a meter or so back up to the computer. If anyone from SBIG would like to log in with TeamViewer and take a look, please let me know. I can't think of anything else to try. I tried updating the driver manually, but it just says it thinks it already has the best driver for this device. The fact that it worked long enough to get that one image of Saturn makes me think it's not a driver problem. From an error message point of view, this seems identical to a problem I had back in May (https://forum.diffractionlimited.com/threads/stf-8300m-not-recognized.5955/#post-31488). In that case, trying a different port seemed to do the trick. That didn't help tonight. I tried three ports on the back and one on the front. Yours, Don Smith Guilford College
Don, do you know WHY the ethernet failed? That is not a typical failure. eg Lightning strike, power outage, UPS batteries dead during a power glitch, computer hardware failing, bad power supply. Did you power off the camera? e.g. power of everything, let it sit for 3-5 minutes for the capacitors to discharge, and then power up the camera and computer? Another sugestion - get a short USB cable, and go direct from the camera to the PC, and try that. I just read your old thread, and am a bit confused - in that thread you said it was a "new computer" - am thinking it was new to your observatory, not a modern PC. Did you find out what the root cause of the 2 bad ports was? We could arrange a TeamView session, but this smells like a hardware problem.
Hi, I don't know why the USB/Ethernet adapter failed. The TeamViewer connection went down, I couldn't reacquire it, and when I physically got there, everything seemed fine with the computer, but it said there was no ethernet. After reboot, it was back on. This is an ASIX USB to Ethernet adapter, and this has happened once before, although the last time was not while I was in the middle of using it. Yes, the computer is new to us. A colleague's family member does network security for a living, and she needs cutting-edge computers for her work. Earlier this year, she donated a 2-year old computer that was much better than the 10-year old computer we were using up to that point. I did power-cycle everything, multiple times, but I can't be confident right now that I waited a full five minutes. I'll try again when I get to work to see if being off for the night made a difference. No, I never found out why it took three different ports before it recognized the camera in May. The problem with a short cable test is that then I'd have to take the camera off the telescope, which means doing a whole new set of flats, and I'd rather not do that if I don't have to. I've ordered an active USB cable, which I can run directly from computer to camera, and if that works, then I can take the mount apart to run that cable through the mount and then under the floor. Right now, there are three USB cables daisy chained together (someone else set that up before I got this job), and I can't imagine that is good for signal integrity across ~10 m. But if I have to take the camera off, I will. Thanks, Don
Ok, here's a few recommendations for you: Age of the PC: I'm not too worried about it, but for the record, you computer could be almost 9 years old. HP released that model in August 2010. Cable Too Long: The USB 2.0 specification allows for 5m (16 feet 5 inches) maximum between the port on the PC (or an active, powered hub) and the camera. It does not work at a 10m length as you've outlined, so unless those are high quality active extender cables, it is a wonder that that anything ever worked. The SBIG cameras will use almost the full USB 2.0 480mbps bandwidth when transfering an image, and timing is critical. So you have to get this right. USB on the motherboard: If you check out the Back Ports listed for that computer, 2 of them are USB 1.1 for slow devices like a mouse, keyboard, USB/RS232 or other devices that don't need speed. There are 4 USB 2.0 ports. Make sure the camera is going into one of the USB2.0 ports. There's a picture of the ports on HP's web page here: https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/c02504610 It's under I/O ports, Back I/O ports - you have to push the [+] to expand it and see the picture. Don't use the front USB ports for the camera. USB port test: You've got: 4 USB 2.0 ports on the back 2 USB 1.1 ports on the back 1 USB 1.1 port on the front It would be a good idea to test all these ports and see if they work. One simple way is to use a known-good, USB 2.0 thumb drive (memory stick) or USB 2.0 external backup hard disk drive. You plug it into each port, and see if it is recognized and files can be copied to it. Then you eject it (in Windows), and when it says ok, you unplug. Wait a few seconds, and then plug it into the next port. That's a cheap and easy port test. If ANY USB 2.0 port fails to work, your motherboard in the machine is probably damaged, and you'll want to round up a replacement PC. On-Board Ethernet: (Ditch the ASIX) The Hewlett-Packard Pavilion Elite HPE-470f computer you have includes a built-in ethernet port on the motherboard. There should be no reason to use the ASIX Ethernet to USB dongle. Ethernet is very demanding of the USB bus, as is the camera, and so if you reconfigure the machine to use the motherboard Realtek 10/100/1000 wired Ethernet port, you'll be better off. I also recommend when you do that, that you get the latest drivers for it from Realtek. https://www.realtek.com/en/component/zoo/advanced-search/72?Itemid=276 I'm pretty sure it's the first link for the PCIe GbE controller. Dedicated USB for Camera: Next, you'll want to make sure you aren't mixing USB speeds. Ideally, the camera should be on its own dedicated connection to the PC, on its own port, not shared with anything else. Slow speed devices like your focuser, mount, and anything else can be together on a separate USB connection. There's a utility called USBView you can get from Microsoft that will show you what is plugged into what USB bus, and how fast it is running. Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS): I personally have good success with the APC Backups Pro units - they have excellent surge protection, and will protect your mount, PC, and anything plugged in. Plus they have shutdown software, so if the power is out a long time, it can safely shut down the PC. https://www.apc.com/shop/us/en/products/APC-Power-Saving-Back-UPS-Pro-1500/P-BR1500G It might help solve some mysteries related to why you had to reboot. Make sure if you have a network hub, USB hub, router, etc that it all goes to 1 power source with a common electrical ground. This won't save your equipment from lightning damage from a close or direct hit, but can save a lot of headaches. Let me know how you make out. After you deal with the USB cable-too-long issue, then you should be back in business. If not, we can try a TeamViewer session, but we have to get the electrical right before moving on to the operating system, drivers, and software. There is still a possibility of hardware damage or failure in the camera or in the PC USB ports - that's pretty hard to check remotely. Good luck, and if you need a hand sorting through any of this, let me know. Am happy to hop on the phone/walk you through it. Cheers Colin
Hi, Thanks for your thorough reply. Let me see if I can address some of these things: Here's the way I currently have the machine configured. Everything except the camera works. Two USB ports on the front: top one is the keyboard/mouse, bottom one is the weather station (USB/Serial COM4). There is a third USB port behind a hidden panel – it is used for thumb drives and the flat field dimmer control. On the back, there are six USB ports, in three rows of two. Top row left (USB 2): USB to Ethernet Top row right (USB 2): Dome control (USB/Serial COM7) Middle row left (USB 2): Camera (USB. Not working.) Middle row right (USB 2): Mount control (USB/Serial COM3) Bottom row left (USB 1): Focus motor (USB/Serial COM10) Bottom row right (USB 1): Cloud monitor (USB/Serial COM11) The direct ethernet port doesn't seem to work. The USB to ethernet was a workaround. We have a UPS, it's an APC 650. Windows says that the driver for the Ethernet card is up to date (3/7/2019), but it doesn't work. I am trying to download the installation software directly from Realtek, but it says it sent a download link to my email, and that email isn't showing up. That's where I am so far. The active USB cable should arrive on Sunday. I am considering moving the computer to the middle of the dome, near the telescope, but then there are issues around running all the other cables to the middle, as well as being able to move around the middle of the dome. I suppose, since I'm running over TeamViewer most of the time these days, that I could just put the tower in the middle, and use a laptop to log into from elsewhere without needing the whole table for the monitor and keyboard and such. I will think about it... You could be absolutely right about the age of the computer! The BIOS says 2010!!! Well, *that's* disappointing. But it's still working better than the old one. Thanks for your help! I'll let you know how the active cable works out. Amazing that three daisy chained USB cables (that probably aren't even USB 2) worked for at least 12 years. Don
Another suggestion: Get a laptop, install SBIGUDrv Driver Checker and MaxIm or CCDOps on it, and connect it to the camera to see if the camera is intact. Am concerned that your PC has bad ports, and one is damaged/possibly damaging the camera. If the camera doesnt work when hooked to another machine, then it will have to come in for hardware service.
Good morning, I just plugged in an active USB 2.0 cable, and the camera worked perfectly! Thanks for all your help! Don
