USB port problem I think

avrc · 26 Oct 2014 at 09:46

I don't know if anyone can help with this.

I have a reptile thermostat (Microclimate Prime 2) that connects to a pc via USB (A to B) and uses software to change settings and view temperatures. This worked just fine on my old pc but I'm having issues using it with my new one.

The problem I'm having is that when the software starts up there's now a considerable delay before any of the information is read from the thermostat and displayed, previously the data was instant. Again if I change anything there's a very long delay before the change is made. I've tried in a USB 3 port and the USB 2.0/1.1 port. After much googling it seems disabling XHCI in the motherboard BIOS may fix problems with USB ports. I have done this and it has sped things up but it's still not perfect. Now when the software starts it does read the data from the thermostat much faster and I see the temperatures updating by the second but then it'll pause for several seconds before resuming which will happen continuously in a loop. If I make a change I'm still sat waiting for it to actually happen.

I'm running Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit. The driver in use is MCP2200 5.1.2600.3 (28/08/2012). I'm using the same cable as I was previously, the driver and software versions are the same as before as well. My old pc was 64bit Windows 7 upgraded to 8.1, the new pc is a fresh 8.1 64bit.

Windows Device Manager lists it as USB Serial Port (COM3)

I've contacted the thermostat manufacturer but in the mean time does anyone have any ideas?

In case I need to change something else in the BIOS, this is the manual: http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-z97n-gaming5_e.pdf

rharris118 · 26 Oct 2014 at 14:31

My suggestion to try is turn off power to the reptile thermostat wait a few seconds the power it again, then go into device manager and uninstall the MCP2200 drivers, scan for new hardware and let it find the driver from windows update. See if that's any better?

From what I can find out windows 64bit seems to have some odd problems with the MCP2200 driver when reading and programming the EEPROM and what I've suggested sometimes fixes the issue for some unknown reason.

avrc · 1 Nov 2014 at 14:40

Still no luck with this.
I tried what you suggested but "Windows could not find driver software for your device"

Tried everything else I can think of or come across on the internet. I've tried the cable in my old pc which my mrs has now and reinstalled driver and software on it and it works 100%. I've tried all the USB ports on my new pc, uninstalled them all from Device Manager and let them redetect. With XHCI enabled in the bios it's unuseable, with it disabled it's just about bearable.

avrc · 4 Nov 2014 at 12:44

Anyone have any other ideas? Spoken to the thermostat manufacturers but they've not come across this issue before, they're going to look into it but without recreating it or finding a solution on the net I'm not sure how far they'll get.

Tried it on my old pc again and it works without issue using the same cable and that pc has XHCI turned on so can't see that being part of the issue.

I'm looking at the status window in the software right now which should be continually updating the temperature but none of the fields are moving.

rharris118 · 4 Nov 2014 at 13:03

I was going to suggest a PCI usb card to see if it worked in one of those as they would have different drivers to the mobo ones, but I see your motherboard only has the one pci-e slot so thats a no go without loosing the gpu. I'm at a loss...

Edit:

Tried a fresh install of windows?

avrc · 4 Nov 2014 at 13:04

Just to add that I'm not having any issues with anything else I plug in to USB. I've tried USB sticks and just updated my satnav software. Keyboard, mouse and printer all work fine, external dvd is also USB and again no issues.