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Amber light on HMD. It's not bent pins in my case --- mystery somewhat solved in my case

digitaldeity
Explorer
Here are my specs before I explain my problem:

Asus z87- pro motherboard
16gb mem
evga GeForce 980 Ti 6B SC+ Gaming ACX 2.0
i5 4670 3.4 ghz
Seasonic M12II Bronze 620W
Win 7 pro

Also, let me start by saying that I I had a dk2 unit, but I was using an evga GeForce GTX760 SuperClocked 2GB GDDR5 256bit card before upgrading to the 980ti a couple of months ago.

Short story.  My Cv1 arrived yesterday.  I got an amber light after the initial setup like several other people.  There were green checks for the sensor and rift.   I have the sensor and the hmd plugged into 3.0 usb ports, and the hdmi plugged directly into the 980ti. 

Things I tried but still only an amber light on the HMD

- Uninstalling Oculus home about 10 times.  I tried reinstalling home on the c: drive
- deleted all instances of Oculus folders and files before trying to reinstall
- Tried uninstalling the nvidia drivers and doing a clean install
- used a 3d party program to uninstall the nvidia drivers completely 
- upgraded the intel usb drivers from intel's website using their "driver update utility"
-  tried disabling the mobo video card in bios
- made sure the hdmi cable was seated in the hmd and in the video card
- made sure I had the latest firmware for my motherboard
- checked for bent pins --- I didn't see any but I didn't take a magnifying glass up to it.
- deleted any instance in the registry mentioning "oculus" until I got tired last night ( i may try that again)
- ran crap cleaner for registry errors, deleted temp files all locations.

all of this and still an amber light in the HMD

I thought it might be a defective 980ti card.  I re-enabled the bios setting for mobo's video card, and plugged the hdmi into the motherboard.  The hmd light turned White! 1st signs of life.  I put the hmd on and checked the display properties.  The HMD got added as a second monitor.  I could see my distorted desktop like I was running in extended mode.

I plugged my hdmi back into the 980ti,  amber light.   I wanted to see if my hdmi was defective on the 980ti, so I disconnected my dvi for monitor and hooked up an hdmi cable to 980ti to monitor.  Everything worked fine so it appears that the hdmi on the 980ti is fine.

One thing I remembered when I first got my 980ti is that my dk2 would go in and out.  The display would turn into a static screen like an analog tv with no signal or the poltergeist tv, then a few seconds later everything would be fine.  This process was intermittent every 10 or 15 seconds.  I chalked it out to a bad cable because it was all tangled up from headset to computer.

What worked.

I took out my GeoForce 980ti, and put in my GeForce GTX760, and I was up and running in 15 min.  Everything worked exactly like it was suppose to! 

Maybe, I have some weird hdmi physical problem, but my monitor works fine from the hdmi slot on my 980ti?   Maybe there's something in the registry that's conflicting with the old oculus software or the nvidia cards that I had?

The powersupply should be sufficient.  I don't have anything wacky drawing a lot of power other than the 980ti. 

Any ideals?   I'm thinking about uninstalling Oculus and nvidia drivers and then deleting all instances of both in the registry, then reinstalling.


 




25 REPLIES 25

neorifter
Protege
There are lots indications that high-end nvidia cards are causing issues. My titan-x worked for two hours no prob initially but after pulling out the hdmi out just once it was lights out with the same symptoms as you. In my case it's obvious bent pins.

I would use a phone camera and zoom in on those pins just to be sure and rule it out.
Like I stated in my threads each hdmi physical interface is different so the alignments could still be good on the older card and motherboard but bad on the 980ti. Maybe nvidia did something funky with the physical spacing of the pins for their newer cards and this is why they adversely affect the crappy (IMHO) oculus hdmi cable and not the more robust standard hdmi cables. It's possible the thickness of the inner sleeve that slides into the cavity of the pins of the cable is thicker in the newer cards vice the older cards and ports thus disturbing and adding too much pressure to the pins. This could explain your observations with the dk2.

You might want to try an extender or an adapter for the dvi or display port, this will allow you to use a different physical hdmi port than the graphics card. This almost worked for me but my pins were too damaged. I bet it will work for you like it has for others assuming your pins aren't damage beyond hope like mine.

From what I read from other troubleshooting efforts software reinstalls will not fix this. And I tried them all even messing with my power management settings hoping to wake up the rift from amber sleep. Never happened.

digitaldeity
Explorer
I called Nvidia Tech support.   I was told that this is a known problem with the cv1 with some of the Evga cards.  The phone tech that I spoke with told me that Oculus built the voltage specifications out of range, and that's what's causing the problem.  I should have recorded the call to get the exact wording.   Anyway, it was a quick call since they were already aware of the problem.   They are going to rma my 980ti.  Before a replacement is sent, they are going to test it to make sure that it works with the Oculus Rift.

If you are thinking about buying an Evga 980ti card, I would buy directly from Evga and tell them that you intend to use it for an Oculus Rift.  FWIW, I was told that they don't have problems with the Vive because it was built to spec., but what prompted me to call was a reddit thread where Vive and Oculus 980ti customers were having display issues with Evga cards.  

Now that I think about it, I don't know if it's exactly Oculus's fault because I was having issues with my Dk2 with the same 980ti

It did cross my mind that neither Nvidia or Oculus hasn't mentioned anything if it's a known issue, and I wasted my weekend trying to determine if it's my hardware or software causing the issue.

absulit
Honored Guest
I'm having the same issue with a EVGA GTX 970, my pins are OK, amber/orange light on Rift. This week I'll receive my HDMI to DP and HDMI to DVI and I'll let you guys know.

digitaldeity
Explorer
Why not give EVGA support a call?  They are open 24 hours.  You shouldn't have to spend more money when it's not your fault.  If anything, Oculus or Nvidia should be supplying the converters depending on who's fault it is.

absulit
Honored Guest


Why not give EVGA support a call?  They are open 24 hours.  You shouldn't have to spend more money when it's not your fault.  If anything, Oculus or Nvidia should be supplying the converters depending on who's fault it is.


I'm actually not in the US nor the countries where Oculus shipped, so I'm pretty much on my own. If the cable is the problem in the end I'll request a new one to support.

digitaldeity
Explorer
Ok gotcha.  I figure that there's going to be a lot of RMA's.  If the cable also fixes the issue, then there's going to be a shortage of cables.

neorifter
Protege


I called Nvidia Tech support.   I was told that this is a known problem with the cv1 with some of the Evga cards.  The phone tech that I spoke with told me that Oculus built the voltage specifications out of range, and that's what's causing the problem.  I should have recorded the call to get the exact wording.   Anyway, it was a quick call since they were already aware of the problem.   They are going to rma my 980ti.  Before a replacement is sent, they are going to test it to make sure that it works with the Oculus Rift.

If you are thinking about buying an Evga 980ti card, I would buy directly from Evga and tell them that you intend to use it for an Oculus Rift.  FWIW, I was told that they don't have problems with the Vive because it was built to spec., but what prompted me to call was a reddit thread where Vive and Oculus 980ti customers were having display issues with Evga cards.  

Now that I think about it, I don't know if it's exactly Oculus's fault because I was having issues with my Dk2 with the same 980ti

It did cross my mind that neither Nvidia or Oculus hasn't mentioned anything if it's a known issue, and I wasted my weekend trying to determine if it's my hardware or software causing the issue.



This is an interesting revelation but other brands like MSI are showing issues to.
My Titan X is a Nvidia reference card and notwithstanding the pin damage shows the same symptoms.

So this reaffirms my belief that Oculus has a poorly designed and inadquately tested cable and the hmd has low tolerance for voltage variances.

It's not the gpu specs that are the issue because if that was the case, I would be having issues with my other displays which I do not both my 4k tv and flat panel monitor check out just fine and others would be reporting the same thing. The DK2 could be off on voltage specs as well but not as bad.

Also there are AMD card owners reporting the same issues as well. This is squarely an issue with the oculus design.

I have less respect for their product design team now.

sandivuk
Expert Protege
Hmm this is interesting. My issue too has been the orange/amber light. The rift originally worked for two hours on an EVGA 960 until it abruptly disconnected and has been in orange death sleep ever since. I have tried just about everything. I even tried it on a friend's PC with a 770 (non EVGA) and the same issue is present. This is all after oculus support sent out a replacement cable as I thought that was the original issue.

I now have an EVGA 980 and of course still have the same issue. Oculus promised to look into sending me a replacement but I've been waiting for over a week.

This week will mark one month of my fantastic (non-working)VR experience.

I'll test this tonight using the mobo HDMI method to see if it really is down to the gpu.

Edit: I should ask, you people with the amber light issue: is your sensor at any time showing the white light when the HMD is amber? Mine refuses to

naders
Honored Guest
Just received my rift and tried to set it up this weekend. My HMD light has always been amber and I haven't been able to get the display to turn on even once. I wasn't aware there was supposed to be another led anywhere... Do you mean on the tracking camera? If so, I haven't seen that light up at all yet.

Everything shows a green check mark in set up though.