Mouse/Keyboard stalling then freezing.

loMe · December 2014

This started happening about a week ago. I'm not sure if my hardware is dying or there's some other issue here. Basically, I'll play for an hour or so and then my mouse starts freezing up for about a second every 3-ish minutes. After dealing with this for about another hour, both my keyboard and mouse will freeze/lock up. The game continues to run, and basically I'm left running in the same direction I was headed and spamming my gun/biting. I have to restart my computer for it to recognize my USB plugs again. I only started having this problem about a week ago.

My setup:
i5 2500k+ @ 4.1GHz (Jan 2012)
Intel 240GB SSD 330 Series
EVGA 770 GTX Superclocked 2GB (Marc 2014)
1 x G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB DDR 1600 (Jan 2012)
700W Power Supply.
Microsoft Sidewinder x4 USB keyboard (Dec 2011)
Logitech G400 mouse (Nov 2012)

I just re-installed my drivers to make sure it isn't a driver issue. I played for about 40 mins with no problems, but I gtg for a little bit now. I was thinking that maybe, it could be related to only having 8GB's of RAM? If you have any ideas please let me know!

METROID · December 2014

loMe, hi!
NS2 is very performance "demanding". You need to check that your overclocked PC is not overheating under continuous high load first.

IronHorse · December 2014

If the game is still running fine besides your input, it's not over heating and is not your ram.

It's either software (to include drivers or viruses) in the background or your USB ports failing (not as likely)

If you have issues after the driver reinstall update us here with your tech support zip file

METROID · December 2014

IronHorse wrote: »

If the game is still running fine besides your input, it's not over heating and is not your ram.

Why not? South Bridge can suffer from heating...

IronHorse · December 2014

Most North and South bridges are cooled passively with a heatsink these days, so the odds of that being the case..
Not to mention almost all overheating issues on motherboards result in emergency shutdowns, the game wouldn't continue to run normally.
It's also best to start with the easy / simple solutions first imo. "Occam's razor" suggests it's software ;P

You aren't running any kb/m sharing software like Synergy are you?
This symptom has occurred once or twice in the past few years and it's always 3rd party software, polling rates, or dead hardware.

loMe · January 2015

Oh btw, it was 100% my mouse dying on me. Not sure why it cycled the other USB devices on and off. Bought a new mouse and the problem went away. Just thought I'd update in case someone runs into this problem again.

IronHorse · January 2015

Thanks for that update!

zero_team_resources · February 2015

Thanks so much for posting and for updating!

I have been experiencing very similar issues and thought it may be due to a USB port problem on my motherboard. For example drawing too much power (My mouse + keyboard are only drawing 100 mAmps) or some sort of HW USB problem.

I have been having the same issue, and will replace my mouse.

Please assume that it worked for me, if not then I will update this post.

Also @ IronHorse you are amazing.

zero_team_resources · February 2015

OK so I switched to a different USB mouse, but I still get NS2 locking up requiring a hard reset. (I have the suspicion that my USB keyboard and USB mouse are shutting off)

FYI the symptoms are:
'Disconnection' icon in the NS2 game
'Repeating' the last ~1.0 seconds worth of actions (run, bite, spray, etc) including sound
Infrequently, 'sound artifacting' where the last ~0.1 seconds worth of sound repeats constantly
After about thirty seconds with the symptoms above, it kicks me back to the 'Loading...' screen and stays there until hard reset.

I am going to switch the USB keyboard now and see if that works.

IronHorse · February 2015

Be absolutely sure you've minimised what is plugged in and what is running in the background.
No headphones, and no AV (temporarily)

zero_team_resources · March 2015

OK so I still have this issue, but have other issues associated with keyboard/mouse (Such as them falling asleep and not responding). However, only with NS2 do they become so very nonresponsive (requiring a hard reset).

I tried various things, including switching to the USB 2.0 ports which DOES seem to have alleviated the issue somewhat. I have a PS/2 converter but can't seem to get that working, yet.

It is difficult to reproduce this issue, but I find a correlation, as IronHorse said, with having other AV programs (such as a youtube video, paused) open in the background.

If I ever get this resolved I will post an update, so far the things to mitigate are:

1) CLOSE all other programs other than NS2
2) Remove all unecessary USB devices
3) Switch to USB 2.0 ports
4) Switch to PS/2 port (untested)
5) Switch to a lower power keyboard or mouse

krOoze · March 2015

By AV he ment AntiVirus (and firewall). Most USBs have horible shielding, try to put your KB and Mouse to a port as far as possible from GPU. Some USB chipsets are faulty from design. Look up the internet if your particular motherboard model have those issues. There are I think some fixits from Microsoft that work as a workaround (usualy disabling USB power saving works). Or the MB manufacturer provides BIOS upgrade - look for them and read if they fix your particular issue. And most likely it is something else. Disable what you don't need. Upgrade all your drivers with versions from their respective vendors, and reap the benefits!

Mouse/Keyboard stalling then freezing.

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