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

No it is not as he mentioned he only had 2 programs running. Steamvr was not one of them.

Correct, and it couldnt be steamVR in my situation as I know there was power being pulled to the headset with the computer shutdown. So there’s something in the firmware not telling the 8k x to completely shut down when pitool shuts down (or the PC shuts down)

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But elin77s vram clock and your 8kx shutdown are complete different things

We dont know what in the taskmanager are left.
Afterburner and Steam are good friends.
sometimes they can’t let go of each other :joy:

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that never worked. the old 8k had to be switched off at the button. The Piserver also continues to run without pitool.

i Never unplugged the 5k+ and left power going thru the usb ports. I also never pressed the power button to turn it off.
Maybe it was getting some kind of power, but the screen was definitely off and it wouldn’t heat up like the 8k x.

Unfortunately with the 8k x they should think of a way to completely automatically shut it down, since it’s already been found to run hot… Now imagine you leave it connected and don’t press the power button for a week? It will keep the headset hot even during power-off.

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He said it right there. It is likely related to piservices running in the background. Steam once exited I have almost never seem any errand steam processes running.

yes, that’s why I answered “strange”.

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There you have said it. Though it was reported the 5k and 8k off was fixed in later firmware/pitool releases.

To completely exit piservices you usually have to exit pitool and kill 3 pimax services. So it is very likely the 8kX is still being seen by piserver.

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for me all HMDs stayed on until it was switched off regularly.
luckily the chevron was annoying so you could see it.

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Myself never stopped after powering off disconnecting wall psu for headset. On old p4k always unplugged the only usb plug. As it also used to return to an on state on a reboot.

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In my opinion the headset should, by default, enter deep standby when it receives power and only power on by a press of the power button.

If they make it configurable in PiTool/Pimax VR Experience as a toggle (automatically power on headset when the power only USB cable receives power) that would probably fit most scenarios.

That is if it’s even possible to control via a firmware update of course… :wink:

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100% agreed on this one

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I’m not sure, but it seems that my 8KX is not in standby, even when the power-only USB is off. I haven’t tried to use in that state, but the top left is quite warm and the backlight appears to be on, even though the LCDs are off (black). The backlight does go off when you cycle the power button, so that the dim red LED switches to bright red.

I much prefer the behavior of my 8KX, with its real power cord. I think that the 8KX must have power from both USB connections tied together or something like that, so that it’s never really “off” unless both USB cables have no voltage. For me, that sucks, since I almost never turn my PC off. It wouldn’t be as big an issue if I could unplug the USB on the headset end, since the PC end is difficult to reach.

I’ll probably have to get some sort of USB hub with a remote on/off switch. For now, I’m trying to remember to cycle the headset into true standby.

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Well… in my eyes there is not really a need for any kind of configuration:

The 8K-X has an additional USB-2.0-power supply :+1:
… as the 5K+ had/has :+1:
… and the 5K+ shuts down completely when the power supply’s socket is switched off :+1:

=> What is so difficult about using that same logic for the 8K-X…?!? :face_with_monocle: :thinking:

IMHO the logic is quite simple:

  1. USB-2.0-power supply connected and power ON => HMD either ON or maximum STANDBY via HMD-button
  2. USB-2.0-power supply not connected OR power OFF OR PC-power OFF/shut down => HMD OFF

Might be I’ve forgotten something :wink: - but in general, I don’t see any reason why Pimax can’t handle it similar to the 5K+. They just have to check whether the USB-2.0-cable gets power or not, especially if someone has connected it to a wall charger with socket switch. Should nothing be easier than that.

Just a bit a pity, that a more modern HMD launched two years later falls back on that point…

Furthermore, I noticed yesterday evening, that when putting my 8K-X to real stand-by via the HMD’s button, I always get a hardware error event #144:

8K-X Hardware-Event 144

Even more curious, that event occurs only ONCE per Windows session, between boot/Windows LogOn and shutdown/Windows LogOff. Means: I can relaunch the 8K-X and put it back asleep multiple times during one and the same single Windows session, but that error #144 occurs only the first time.

Fortunately nothing more happens, everything works and runs, standard flat gaming as well as VR, no crashes, no BSOD or the like.
However, a bit curious, annoying and unusual, too.

I will double-check that by updating my NVidia graphics card drivers - but together with that USB-2.0-issue, that sounds rather uncommon to me…

I’ll keep monitoring and probably open a new issue topic on that so @pimax doesn’t have to read through all this topic here :wink:


EDIT:
NVidia drivers updated, played an hour Elite Dangerous in VR.
Pressed the HMD’s power-off/-standby button - and once again hardware event 144 exactly at this point in time (I did a reboot after driver update):

So, this problem isn’t related to the graphics card driver.

Can anyone reproduce and confirm? => Reliability Monitor

Opening a separate thread for this one; posted it here just for the sake of completeness.

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After I went through this thread, I checked my thinner USB cable.
I removed it, and my 8KX worked without a flaw. (HLA, Whirligig, SteamVR Home)
It is not necessary to run the PIMAX 8KX with the thinner USB cable connected to a source.
It seems, if Your MoBO provides enough Power via You USB3 port, You are done.

Does any one know what the second USB plug is for?

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Funny You should mention it just now as I actually had to unplug the power only/thin USB 2 cable Yesterday too be able to firmware upgrade… :wink:

It’s only there for extra power in case the primary USB (3.0) cable isn’t providing enough power as far as I understand.

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Ah, thank You, the second USB connector is a solution for weak mainboard power supply and saved a separate PSU device for PIMAX. For me no need to connect then

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well, reading this ENTIRE thread up to this point and i STILL havent found a concrete power rating like ive been looking for for over an hour. Id LOVE to say that Pimax THEMSELVES provided customers with PROPER power supply or at least a specific recommendation on the subject (like “use 5v 2amp” or something) BUT unfortunately, at least in my case, I recieved no such suggestion from pimax themselves. maybe it was in the instruction manual? but again, in my case, there WAS NO instruction manual explaining anything more than maybe 2 sentences - “plug up, turn on, thats all.” so why is everyone telling this guy how stupid he is? had pimax provided the necessary information regarding proper power supply to begin with, this may have been avoided. then, if someone neglected to read it, they could be held fully accountable. but… i keep hearing suggestions to use usb power block but no specific voltage reccomendations etc… i wish i had kept count of how many ps4 controllers i have fried in the past by using a samsung galaxy s7 charger on them, but i guess without proper guidance from the manufacturer people will use anything that have handy :confused:

Could anyone answer me this, and provide some insight on the subject as well? since the lack of info from pimax has lead me to spending more time researching my pimax and troubleshooting its issues than i spend actually using and enjoying it.

what is the proper voltage etc needed from a power block for the 8kx? im working on buying extension cables for it at the moment and need some more info on the matter to make sure i buy the proper usb extensions.

does anyone know if this would be safe and sufficient? using this cable for the usb 3.0 cable to the pc -

using this ethernet cable to extend the usb 2.0 to a power block near the pc -

and using this ethernet to usb adapter (also for the usb 2.0 power supply ) -

and for the displayport extension, this -

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In theory, any properly made (well isolated) 5V 0.5A ‘wall wart’ USB power supply should work. Consider searching for that on Amazon, and sorting by highest average reviews. Look for hundreds to thousands of reviews, and the smallest percentage of low (ie. 1 or 2 star) ratings, etc.

Also make sure to plug this into the same plug strip as your computer - you do not want ground loops.

All that said, it is safest to power the 8kX only from your PC’s own USB ports.

Main thing is you do not want any significantly different voltage, ground loop, or noise, from what your PC puts out on the USB ports.

As for USB3 extension cables… I am sure someone else will respond to that. There is a thread around here for tested cables…

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