I got a Thrustmaster TS-PC from Amazon near the beginning of December with a very good price. It worked for about two weeks of light usage.[I'm a mailman in the USA and we get rather busy after Thanksgiving so I usually come home late and don't get much time to play] I sent it back for a replacement to Amazon after wasting two plus weeks getting very very very slow responses from Thrustmaster themselves. Amazon sent out a replacement, it was obviously either reconditioned or a return itself, the packaging was less than pristine and the plastic wrap was very loose on the components. That worked for about a week. Amazon sent a refund, which took about two weeks total. I chatted with their customer reps and got them to agree to sell the same unit to me again at the December sale price. The third wheel arrived two days ago. I used it twice, the 2nd time a very enjoyable hour on a very slowly drying track at Silverstone with the GT3's. So today...I fire up my system and notice the power light is off...AGAIN... and nothing seems to wake it up. Is there a hidden on/off switch on these things? How do 3 separate units just QUIT after only a few hours use? No rally driving, or extreme rattling. Thats 3 wheels in less than two months...but if you take out the down time for returns/reshipping etc...that is 3 dead wheels in less than two weeks of use.
That's not a very good run of luck Dave. Have you seen this, I have no idea if it will help but you never know. http://ts.thrustmaster.com/download/accessories/manuals/TSPCRacer/TS-PC_Bootloader Method.pdf
Either you have been very unlucky and been sent three faulty products Or something on your end is killing either the wheel or power supply. Daft question in bound,the power supply isn’t coming loose on the back of the wheel base is it ?? Can you smell fired electrics at all,not just warm but actually blown electronics smells I guess if you have a multimeter you can check the power supply,to rule that out.
Thanks, that seemed to describe the issue, but pressing the buttons and holding them while re-inserting the USB plug didn't do anything. My first unit did have a bad power socket in the base, the plug barely fit into the base and while it worked for a while, eventually the plug backed out and I was unable to get it re-inserted. Eventually, I bent the plug trying to get it into the base. The 2nd and 3rd units just won't power up. I'll experiment a few more times with ADSTA's method. Already sent a very dis-heartened email to TM, if previous emails are any indication, I'll hear back from them sometime late this week.
That is a real negative time consuming experience Dave. A question, is the USB cable plugged directly into the computer or via a USB hub. A lot of devices I have come across worked optimally directly connected to a USB 2.0 port on the computer (USB 3.0 did not work that well). Good luck and I hope you have a solution soon, I am curious to hear how it gets on as I expect my old G27 (now has a beard ) will not last forever .
I haven't used a USB hub since probably the dx486 days.... or was that sx? No matter, I have several 3.0 usb ports and have tried them all, including putting my wireless mouse receiver in the usb port that WAS being used by the wheel. It was detected just fine. I'm beginning to suspect something involving the firmware. As long as I kept the computer powered up AFTER the firmware update, it worked fine. The wheel is not detected and acts like it has no power only AFTER I power down my system for the night and then try to restart in the morning. Just a hunch but I'll pass it on to TM;.
My question was have you tried USB 2.0 ports and not USB 3.0 ? Yeah, the old IBM 386dx/486dx/486sx bulletproof cases, did my early training on them .
Would you say that the way the wheels broke or the symptoms they show when they do not work are similar? If so, you should check power supply or USB hub. The former being more likely to cause a damage I would presume.
Device Manager / USB controllers. Right click each entry and select Properties. Select the Power Management tab, not all entries have that tab. Untick the "Allow this computer to turn off this device to save power" option.
I got a cheap voltometer/meter...what-ever you call it, and confirmed the power plug itself was passing elctricity. However, I cannot verify that the plug that exits the power brick and is inserted in the base is electrified. The end plug has a metal circular collar and 4 male plugs that insert into sockets in the base. I don't know which of the 4 studs are conducting electricity or are grounds. But I did not get the meter to react to any placement of the probes.
In case you didn't know, the power from your wall outlet to the brick is AC. The power out of the brick is DC. It should all be written on the brick
The wheel just arrived back from the Thrustmaster repair depot. Just about to power it up......(been letting it rise to room temperature before installing and using it. cold here this time of year) Ta DA! Red light came on.... wheel performed the self center check. Now if I can make it last longer than a few days. I've put the power supply on a completely separate wall socket via a powerstrip with a fuse(yes I know the two wall sockets share the same circuit). The repair report stated the wheel was fine. Three different tech teams couldn't find anything wrong so somehow I must be grounding out the powersupply. Even though I've never done that using a Logitech for 5+ years. But I'll take every precaution. I want to AT LEAST get comfortable with the dang thing..... I'll say a big thank you to the repair groups, and keep my fingers crossed.
Good luck. Only thing I can offer is make sure all the cables are properly connected. When I build a computer or am putting in new hardware, especially ram and anything in the pcie slots, I don't just insert it and carry on, I take it out and then reseat it one or two times. I do that now because a new pc I built didn't start first time. Ram was inserted properly but the first thing I tried was to reseat it and the pc started.
Well so far so good. I have not let the computer power up the wheel, been keeping it shut off unless I'm actually driving. And I kill the power from the power strip once I"m done driving AND the wheel's fan has shut down. Then the wheel is un-powered til I want to use it again. I've only driven a few cars, but I haven't experienced any of that noisy rattling at some tracks. I'll have to see if I can find one of those cars to see if this wheel is susceptible to that. min ffb in-game is 0.5 and smoothing is actually at zero.
This has probably not any relation to your problems - but conserning a PSU issue then the PSU in my SRW-S1 wheel gets destroyed if I have the wheel connected to the USB when I switch the PC on. I have destroyed 1 wheel this way and I know of another SRW-S1 user who have got 4 wheels replaced because of this issue. Because even with a high end PSU(Be Quiet) there is a posibility of a high turn on voltage spike on the USB port. So as a precaution I allways just plug the wheel USB in AFTER the PC(and Windows) has started.
My t300 would never calibrate properly if I booted the pc with it plugged in. I always un plug before shutting down and only plug it back in once windows has booted. Glad to hear you’re up and running again
