Suggestion: DO NOT POWER 8kX at 12V! 8K X USB to a Power Supply Adapter Works Fine and Saves a USB Port!

Pimax Hardware P2: 8kX
83

What Pimax considers ‘all run hot’ at let’s say perhaps 50C and what a few users notice at 55C from some headsets, may be a very significant difference in 8kX failure rates.

Inductors and capacitors tend to have mean-time-between failure rates that may drop off as sharply as 1 million hours at 45degC and 95% of rated voltage, down to 1000 hours at 50degC or 100% of rated voltage, down to only 100 hours at 55degC or 105% rated voltage. Nearing the limits of both ratings at the same time is liable to have an even more drastic effect.

What Pimax considers a reasonable failure rate, let’s say 1%, might be far below industry standards for a quality product, and thus, ‘shouldn’t worry’ may be good advice in the vast majority of cases. However, that doesn’t mean us taking some extra precautions is unwarranted. Manufacturing defects and mechanical breakdown of thermal paste happens. Consider that at even a 1% failure rate, 1 in 1000 of us will be unlucky enough to go through two warranty returns in a row.

Speaking for myself, I would rather know a lot more about the normal and outlier temperatures reported, so I can stick a heatsink on the thing before I risk being one of those 1 in 1000 unlucky folks. Such things have happened to me before.

Two warranty returns is a lot of downtime.

So, while I trust Pimax for reasonable quality going forward, overheating failure rates that are well below industry standards and acceptable to any company, still might be something I want more details about, and possibly to improve on.

Ideally, Pimax would have released a datasheet, like we would get for an operational amplifier chip from Texas Instruments, showing the statistical distribution of various temperature points from many headsets produced, with a few example thermal images included. This is a consumer product though, and Pimax is a small company as it is, so it is unlikely that much research will be done (probably not cost effective to do).

So, on the chance that you do have an unusually hot device, that data point is valuable to know. Thanks for investigating this.

_
@Finn No, a FLIR camera is far more accurate than any thermometer.

6 Likes
84

Here’s some early FLIR Images i took today… These were taken at IDLE - not running a game, and today it felt that i could touch the headset without it hurting my fingers by the way. So the other day when it was running at it’s hottest, it must have been at 55C+ for sure.

I will take some more pictures probably after some usage tomorrow and this weekend.

I added an internal USB Hub because of issues where my USB’s were conflicting because of too much power being drawn from the multiple accessories I have (i have a motion simulator and alot of accessories attached to the PC). Once I add the internal self-powered USB 3.0 HUB today and checked how it felt, the temps felt as if it was alot less than before, because previously it got to the point I couldnt touch near the connector area on the HMD.

Go to this posting for the FLIR Images below. Hottest it got at IDLE was 48C+ and this was over about 30 minutes. I turned off the PC after because i had to charge the camera and couldnt stay by the computer.

https://community.openmr.ai/t/8k-x-gets-incredibly-hot-to-the-touch-near-the-dp-usb-plug-at-the-hmd-side-anyone-else-noticing-this/30658/20

5 Likes
85

Just a quick question:
How much Ampere should the USB-charger have…? => 500 mA, 1000 mA, 2500 mA ?
I want to plug the USB plug for current into a charger, but neither I want to have too less nor - even worse - too much Ampere / mA.

Thx already :slight_smile:

86

1A is probably sufficient.

You can’t really give it “too much” current (Amps) though as it just draws the amount it needs (EDIT: unlike using too high voltage which will fry the electronics)… :upside_down_face:

4 Likes
87

Thx for it. I have a attached it to a LG smartphone charger with 1.8A, and it generally it seems to work well :+1:

What I am bit confused about is the fact that the HMD doesn’t disconnect and go off completely as the 5K+ did when I switched of its power supply at the plug socket: When I turn on my PC and the HMD’s USB-2.0-power supply via charger is still off, the HMD starts to boot anyway, too. First the LED is red, then it goes violet as if it would be ready - only thing why I don’t have any image then is that the lighthouse is attached to the same charger’s socket as well, and as this one is still off, the lighthouse is off, too. When I switch on the charger’s and lighthouse’s socket then, it takes a couple of seconds, and the image is there, the HMD is “really” ready.

So in general nothing unusual - except the fact that the 8K-X still is some kind of standby even though when its USB-2.0-power supply still is off or off again (after a session, when I don’t need for some time).

As mentioned, nothing such curious with the 5K+ ever…

:thinking:

Normal for the 8K-X?

@Alex.liu

2 Likes
88

I think it’s “normal” according to other posts on this forum.

I’d really like it to only use the “power only” cable as a trigger for shutting completely down/entering standby… :+1::wink:

That way we could decide for ourselves if we want it to power on/off with the computer (if the USB ports are set to power off at shutdown) if we’re using only ports on our computers or to control it externally using the “power only” USB cable… :slightly_smiling_face:

I don’t know if it’s something they can control in firmware though?

@Alex.liu is the man to answer that, look into it and/or prioritize it… :+1::wink:

2 Likes
89

I noticed the same somewhat and it started to get really hot after a few days.
My pc had the usb power still going thru the usb ports even when the pc is off so the 8K X even though was showing a red LED, it was still getting power. I turned off power to the usb’s after shutdown in the bios settings (“ErP enabled for asus bios)

3 Likes
90

Yes this seems to be a flaw. I have added Alex.liu to your post to take a look. Hopefully it can be fixed up in firmware.

3 Likes
91

Thank you both / all :+1:

As my PC is plugged to another socket with a separate switch, I don’t have any standby or heat problems when the PC is off and the switch too.

Yes, @Alex.liu, that would be quite helpful if you could investigate about this. It certainly isn’t that top urgent from my point of view, but somewhat irritating and annoying, indeed.

2 Likes
92

Hi everybody once again,

dear Pimaxteam, @Alex.liu,

the 8K-X really needs an firmware or driver update which shuts it down automatically and completely, when the USB2.0-power supply is plugged off/shut down/deactivated etc.

Reason:
I just had 5 insane minutes figuring out why my VRAM clock in idle was too high and did not went down to its idle clock although nothing was running except Firefox and Afterburner.
Even re-boot did not change anything.
This was when I noticed my 8K-X, touched it - and noticed it was quite warm at the connection between cable and HMD… saw that dim red LED - and decided it could be the 8K-X was ON again and although the power socket of the USB2.0-power cable was OFF the whole day!

It was…

When pressing the HMD’s power button, the speakers played the USB-disconnection sound and the LED on the HMD went from dim red to bright red - 8K-X now really off, cable-HMD-connection area is getting colder - and my VRAM clock went down to its 405 MHz idle clock instantly!
Furthermore, not to mention, that graphics cards temperatures now are down to comfortable idle 31°C instead of 44-45° before when VRAM was not clocking down…

This really needs to be solved - from my point of view, this is not longer a luxury and comfort problem, but really draws unnecessarily a larger amount of power though supposed to be shut off. And unnecessary power draw and current leads to unnecessary load on the components, warmer temperatures both of the HMD and the graphics card, potentially reducing hardware’s life time.

Last but not least, that minor difference in brightness between “dim red = stand-by, but still on”, and “bright red = really stand-by and almost off” is very hard to notice…

Please have a look at that :slight_smile:

6 Likes
93

EXACTLY what i mentioned before as well. It doesn’t completely shut down even if it’s a red light and the pc is off. I mitigated the issue by going into the Asus bios and switching on ErP Enabled (turns off all power to the USB’s unless the pc is on… In this way, it completely shuts down

I didnt have to do that with the 5k+. And Dim Red or Bright Red felt like it was the same to me, although i didnt test this to be sure.

4 Likes
94

but this is a steamVR problem…

95

No it has nothing to do with SteamVR actually. My 5k+ never had this issue, it would automatically shut down and be powered off with the red light. The 8K X doesnt do that.

2 Likes
96

The fact that the graphics card continues to run at a high rate (in some situations) when the HMD is switched off is a SteamVR problem. I have it with the 8k, the 8k +, the X and with the Odyssey too.

97

I did not open SteamVR the whole day, it was not running at all.
Even Steam was shut down at this moment.
At least as active process.
Could well be that there still was some automatic service running in the background.

And as @MikeJeffries wrote, my 5K+ didn’t show that odd behaviour, neither.

2 Likes
98

strange…

202020 20zwanzig

99

My issue was that i felt the HMD after a few days and it was incredibly hot where the cable was. It seemed like it was pulling power from the USB port for a few days at that point before i shut down the usb power during power-offs

2 Likes
100

And I answered the point mentioned in the quota.

101

Yes but like i mentioned before, it has nothing to do with SteamVR. How could it be if the PC is completely off?

1 Like
102

i have answered elin, with pc on :wink: