Steel Series Xai Mouse Causes Boot Failure

Ph4lanx

Ph4lanx

Ph4lanx

Associate
Joined
19 Apr 2010
Posts
474
Location
Surrey
Hi guys,

I thought I would bring to everyone's attention a problem I am having, which thus far, Steel Series have been unable to resolve for me (10 days and counting)...

I bought a Steel Series Xai mouse recently and noticed that after plugging it in and installing the drivers, etc. - I then rebooted only to find that my PC failed to POST. It kept resetting itself over and over, until finally I considered unplugging the mouse and voila! Problem solved!

After Windows 7 (I run 64-bit Home Premium) starts to load, I can plug the mouse back in and it works fine, but up until that point, it causes the PC to reboot. I found out through some testing of my own, that it is because the mouse doesn't like USB 3, so if I disable USB3 on the motherboard, the problem goes away. However I don't think this is acceptable that I have to cripple my PC's performance to get my mouse working.

At the moment I am currently having to go round the back of the PC and unplug the mouse until the PC runs through POST, then plug it back in. Not ideal.

I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue and knows how to get it working without me disabling things on my motherboard (I run a Gigabyte X58A-UD3R).

I don't want to, but I feel if this can't be resolved, I'll be asking for a refund from SteelSeries for the mouse, and they can have it back and I'll go back to Razer, who have never let me down so far, and if I can't resolve this, will make me feel like I never should have trusted SteelSeries :( I opened a ticket with Steel Series 10 days ago, and thus far have been flatly ignored.

I am already looking to a new mouse, which is a shame as I am enjoying the Steel Series mouse and the Merc Stealth that I bought, but if this is how the quality of Steel Series is, I won't feel safe using their products as a gamer.
 
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Well i have just got one and have win 7 64 bit, i havent noticed any issues yet but come to think of it i dont think i have rebooted yet, i do get an issues where if you put pc to sleep and bring it back the mouse says its not connected and it takes 20 seconds to wake up.
 
Steel Series have said it is more to do with USB 3 on certain motherboards, however I feel this is still their problem, not the board manufacturer's. Let me know how it goes on a reboot schnipps, best of luck.
 
Rebooted mate and its fine on all my free usb's, i havent tried all of them as it means unplugging stuff, so seems fine. Seriously nice mouse woulkd be a shame if they let it down over this. Couple it with the roccat bungie and its a very nice combo. Im on a P55 -UD5
 
Well I'm now talking to the retailer about this, and they have had more than one person phone up asking for a RMA on this product due to either the rebooting issue I have, and also another problem which I thought was just TF2 being funny, but when you scroll the mouse wheel up to change weapons in-game, sometimes is doesn't register the up motion, then when you do it again, it registers the one previous plus the current one and you end up moving up two weapons in your list.

Now that they said it, I just went "omg I get that too!", he just started laughing and said "i'll start the RMA process!" :) So I guess what Steel Series can't fix, the retailer is more than happy to it seems. Oh well, this has now completely put me off Steel Series.

Anyone wanna buy a Merc Stealth keyboard? :)
 
I just purchased one of these also. Brilliant mouse, but I swear it increases my boot up time. Sometimes when my PC boots up the mouse and keyboard don't work straight away, then the "USB Plug-in" sound plays and they both switch on - didn't happen with my last mouse.

I too am running Windows 7 64bit, I also have USB 3.0 on my mobo, but I have disabled it anyway until I get some USB 3.0 devices.
 
VortX said:
Brilliant mouse, but I swear it increases my boot up time. Sometimes when my PC boots up the mouse and keyboard don't work straight away
Click to expand...

I found exactly the same with the boot speed and keyboard. I've now switched to a SteelSeries Kinzu as I prefer the size and that doesn't seem to cause any problems. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit on a non USB 3 mobo (Asus P6TD Deluxe).
 
Simon42 said:
I found exactly the same with the boot speed and keyboard. I've now switched to a SteelSeries Kinzu as I prefer the size and that doesn't seem to cause any problems. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit on a non USB 3 mobo (Asus P6TD Deluxe).
Click to expand...

Strange... I wonder if it will get fixed in a firmware/software update? How new is the mouse exactly?
 
Well, I've now had a message from * competitor * saying they're looking into the issue, but when I went on their support forum, strangely (or maybe not so strangely!), my thread on there explaining the farce of support so far has disappeared.

So essentially, because they can't figure something out, they delete it from their site. Lovely support. This has put me off * competitor * completely, and I will be recommending to everyone I know not to buy their products.

A real shame, because I wanted to give some other companies a try, but these guys have let me down with their support and complete lack of knowledge of their own products.

Never mind... Anyone want to buy a * competitor * keyboard? Only 2 weeks old! (Luckily Scan are being better and RMAing the mouse for me!).

Please don't name competitors Ph4lanx, Thank you.
 
Ph4lanx said:
Well, I've now had a message from saying they're looking into the issue, but when I went on their support forum, strangely (or maybe not so strangely!), my thread on there explaining the farce of support so far has disappeared.

So essentially, because they can't figure something out, they delete it from their site. Lovely support. This has put me off completely, and I will be recommending to everyone I know not to buy their products.

A real shame, because I wanted to give some other companies a try, but these guys have let me down with their support and complete lack of knowledge of their own products.

Never mind... Anyone want to buy a keyboard? Only 2 weeks old!
Click to expand...

Shame to hear the bad news dude :( One note though I would remove the competitor asap.

I will be keeping my Xia, I can put up with the slight boot lag because I really like the mouse and I haven't found any other than I like the look of. I can't see them fixing it software/firmware wise as the last Xia update was November 2009.
 
Hello,

Mike from SteelSeries support here. I just wanted to provide some clarification into the situation with the boot issue that you have experienced. We are now aware that the products supporting the new USB 3.0 interface may experience issues with the boot sequence, as well as create "flickering" power issues with certain USB devices. USB 3.0 is designed to selectively power devices based on usage and this may be causing a multitude of issues not only with our SteelSeries Xai mouse, but with many legacy USB 1.1 and 2.0 devices. The current theory for our specific case is that since the SteelSeries Xai has to do with the mouse being recognized as two HID devices (one for basic mouse function, second for macros). Since the second HID device is selectively utilized, the USB 3.0 power features may be attempting to power down one of the logical HID devices and not the other, which may bug the mouse's processing/reporting unit. This is only a theory and we are making efforts to further test and diagnose the issue.

We do our best to stay ahead of any product issues and/or incompatibilities that may arise with new technology. Unfortunately, with the vast array of products going to market and constantly evolving technologies, it is inefficacious for us to test the product with every piece of hardware available. We are looking to work with the 3rd party hardware manufacturers to hopefully come to a quick conclusion. In the meantime, we recommend that any of our SteelSeries Xai mouse users that experience a boot issue with the USB 3.0 interface, turn off this feature in their BIOS and contact their motherboard manufacturer.

Lastly, we do not ignore our customer requests or any pertinent information from our website or support system. On the contrary, we look to provide definite and non-conflicting information and support for all of our customers through normalized mediums such as direct 1-on-1 customer support and our FAQ. We appreciate the efforts of our customers to come to issue resolutions together in a timely fashion and especially encourage customers looking to help each other through forums and social media. It is our job to monitor and regulate the information as to help and re-assure our customers to its accuracy.

To close, I would encourage any customer experiencing a product issue to visit our support page at: Http://www.steelseries.com/support
Here you can find product drivers, the FAQ page, and also access our 1-on-1 customer support system. We promise to provide timely and friendly service to all of our customers through the mediums given.

Thanks and Best Regards,
Mike S @ SteelSeries Support
 
S3-MIKE said:
Hello,

Mike from SteelSeries support here. I just wanted to provide some clarification into the situation with the boot issue that you have experienced. We are now aware that the products supporting the new USB 3.0 interface may experience issues with the boot sequence, as well as create "flickering" power issues with certain USB devices. USB 3.0 is designed to selectively power devices based on usage and this may be causing a multitude of issues not only with our SteelSeries Xai mouse, but with many legacy USB 1.1 and 2.0 devices. The current theory for our specific case is that since the SteelSeries Xai has to do with the mouse being recognized as two HID devices (one for basic mouse function, second for macros). Since the second HID device is selectively utilized, the USB 3.0 power features may be attempting to power down one of the logical HID devices and not the other, which may bug the mouse's processing/reporting unit. This is only a theory and we are making efforts to further test and diagnose the issue.

We do our best to stay ahead of any product issues and/or incompatibilities that may arise with new technology. Unfortunately, with the vast array of products going to market and constantly evolving technologies, it is inefficacious for us to test the product with every piece of hardware available. We are looking to work with the 3rd party hardware manufacturers to hopefully come to a quick conclusion. In the meantime, we recommend that any of our SteelSeries Xai mouse users that experience a boot issue with the USB 3.0 interface, turn off this feature in their BIOS and contact their motherboard manufacturer.

Lastly, we do not ignore our customer requests or any pertinent information from our website or support system. On the contrary, we look to provide definite and non-conflicting information and support for all of our customers through normalized mediums such as direct 1-on-1 customer support and our FAQ. We appreciate the efforts of our customers to come to issue resolutions together in a timely fashion and especially encourage customers looking to help each other through forums and social media. It is our job to monitor and regulate the information as to help and re-assure our customers to its accuracy.

To close, I would encourage any customer experiencing a product issue to visit our support page at: Http://www.steelseries.com/support
Here you can find product drivers, the FAQ page, and also access our 1-on-1 customer support system. We promise to provide timely and friendly service to all of our customers through the mediums given.

Thanks and Best Regards,
Mike S @ SteelSeries Support
Click to expand...

Stunning customer service mate, it's nice to see you have made the effort to sign up and post such a constructive reply :).

On another note, and you may wish to pass it on... Regarding my problem with the Xia preventing the USB ports from initialising straight away at boot up (makes my keyboard hang as well), by enabling Legacy USB in the BIOS it seems to have solved the problem.

This is my first Steelseries product and so far I am quite impressed :) Customer service is a very important factor in whether I purchase something, so it’s nice to see you coming on the forums.

Thanks again!
 
Scratch that I got the same problem this morning. It seems to be less frequent though, or then again it could be coincidence.
 
Mike, my forum post was deleted without comment or query. It seems Steel Series didn't want other people to see the problem and see what was going on. Never mind. I'm sorry to say the whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth.
 
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