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Can Oculus give us some clarity on the cause of Right Headphone problem and how to avoid it?

phoenixdigital
Heroic Explorer
To start with I want to commend Oculus for providing RMAs for some
people with this issue who are outside of their warranty period. This is excellent customer service and a great way to keep brand loyalty and trust in the Rift as a whole. I feel
bad for those you have denied though for whatever reasons you have. It
is pretty unfair that apparently through no fault of their own their
Rift audio has died without any chance of repair or an option to buy a
replacement ribbon cable to attempt repair themselves.

Can Oculus give us some information about why this is happening to some users?

Is
it a fault with some Rifts during manufacturing or are the users doing
something that increases the chance of this internal ribbon cable tearing?

Is there anything we can do to avoid this happening to us?

Should we be avoiding stretching the headband springs too much?

This
is pretty critical because Oculus still have no paid spare parts or
repair service. If we inadvertently break our Rifts through normal use
when out of warranty we are shit out of luck and have to buy a brand new
headset or switch to an external set of headphones. Unless of course your support staff decide to provide an RMA outside of warranty which appears to be about a 50/50 chance from the 36 posts I read.

I did some
searching on this topic on both reddit and these forums and found about
36 posts on the topic since June 2016. 16 of these posts occurred in the
last 3 months so it appears to be something that is getting worse with
time. If this happens to more and more people when out of warranty this
is going to be a large PR problem. That said 36 posts of the however
many tens/hundreds of thousands of Rifts out there is quite small in the
big scheme of things too. Having a way to fix it ourselves by buying
a part if out of warranty would be great for piece of mind though.

Do you have any plans for spare parts service?

Some clarity on the issue would be great to be sure we treat our expensive excellent VR device with the care it deserves.

Possible causes
I'm
wondering if the underlying cause is the tension springs in the
headband itself somehow catching on this internal ribbon cable causing it to
tear. Maybe repeated stretching of the headband springs over time causes
the ribbon cable to move into a position where it can tear inside the
headstrap?

Springs here
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Oculus+Rift+CV1+Teardown/60612#s126787

Springs in action as this person stretches the tension springs to put it on
https://j.gifs.com/AnBwW3.gif

If
this is known to cause the problem could Oculus let us know so we
stop doing it as much. I'd much prefer to avoid doing whatever it is
that can cause this ribbon cable to tear than run the risk of it happening when I get
out of warranty.

Some pics of the torn ribbon cable from various posts
https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/comment/525398/#Comment_525398

https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/comment/531518#Comment_531518


CPU: i5 6600K (conservative overclock), GPU: Asus GTX1080Ti (not overclocked), motherboard: Asus Z170 Pro Gaming, USB Card 1: Inatek 4 Port, USB Card 2: Startek 2 Port
41 REPLIES 41

tlsmikey
Honored Guest
Had the same problem in mine after around six months and sent it in for an RMA.  The unit was sent and is being processed, but its been unbearably slow so far.  I'm not sure why the support of these units is so slow in diagnosis and warranty replacement.  It's a known issue that seems to affect quite a few people and I would think that the speed could be improved dramatically to improve satisfaction.  

Hopefully mine gets a warranty replacement soon.  It's been there since Friday and i'm told it's being looked at.  I'll report back on the status.

assettomio
Adventurer
Ive opened up many many laptops tablets and phones in my lifetime, and also had a broken right earpiece, but if it really is at the ribbon cable that is the problem, then it won't be the ribbon cable that breaks unfortunately (which wouldve been a cheap and easy replacement to make), but it would be the connector on the board, usually with a flipthingy that holds it in place or the cable snaps onto the connector, these things are stuck on the board, so the only viable way to fix it ourselves would be to replace that entire board it is connected to, which drives the speaker I guess.
Oculus is probably gonna have that part heavily patented, and I doubt they will release that part or the schematics for it cuz of warranty and such, because releasing that part only would kinda come across as admitting there is a problem, which as everyone knows, is something business people don't like doing, even if the technical people there might

Thmoas
Rising Star
The ribbon gets teared because of the sliding mechanism. Thats my guess.

On the right side my sliding mechanism has a block at a certain point. I think that is where the friction on the ribbon happens. I try to avoid pushing through when I feek this "block".

flexy123
Superstar
It's known what causes it, what's happening is that the internal ribbon cable breaks.  Most of the time it breaks somewhere "in the middle", sometimes near/at the connector. It breaks because the sliding mechanism bends the ribbon when you slide it out.

Prevention:  Never pull out the sliding part entirely and adjust it that way that it cannot slide all the way out.

There was a very good video of some guy somewhere where it was exactly shown what's happening, can't find it right now.

PS My experience with Oculus support, so far, is excellent. For another issue I sent in my unit, and the response and them sending back a replacement after it was received in NL couldn't possibly get ANY faster. (Scheduled delivery by UPS on Tuesday). (Basically, it arrived on Friday noonish in the distribution center in NL, and dispatched early Tuesday).

assettomio
Adventurer
If it's the ribbon cable itself then it should be easy enough for some chinese manufacturer to make some

AQfumes
Adventurer
Yep I accidentally rip mine apart sometime back last March, and I’ve been using Bluetooth headphones ever since. I reported it to Oculus support but since I admitted it was my fault due to my hat getting snagged on the head strap, my warranty would not cover the damage. I understand that’s how warranties work though, so no love lost on the Oculus support side. 

I was just hoping support could shed some info on how to replace it cause I would pay to have it fixed. Support replied there wasn’t any solution yet on how to repair and I should keep my eye on the forum incase one should ever arise from Oculus. 

I plan on on buying a new Rift next month anyways, but I would love to get this one repaired some day. 

z5j42ccjjnso.jpeg



phoenixdigital
Heroic Explorer

AQfumes said:

Yep I accidentally rip mine apart sometime back last March.


Ouch you would have definitely lost rear tracking sensors there. Hopefully they do get a paid repair/replacement/spare parts service sorted soon so you can fix it. I've been banging on about it for over 14 months since back when they were telling people whose cats had chewed their HMD cable "Sorry buy another Rift". They have started offering them as spare parts now thank god but they still need to get their after warranty user paid support sorted.


You look like the perfect candidate for getting a close up pic of that cable. I've been trying to see how many traces there are on the cable. Can you take some close up pics of each end of the break?


 I'm particularly interested in some idea of how many traces there are like the ones I highlighted here in green.


https://imgur.com/14mSxDe
CPU: i5 6600K (conservative overclock), GPU: Asus GTX1080Ti (not overclocked), motherboard: Asus Z170 Pro Gaming, USB Card 1: Inatek 4 Port, USB Card 2: Startek 2 Port

hoezy
Honored Guest
my ribbon cable broke completely in half. the audio and tracking sensors arent working anymore (the lights on the back won't go on). i don't care about the audio though but i don't experience any tracking issues also. is it because i use 4 camera's? 

phoenixdigital
Heroic Explorer
I've been banging on about this being an issue for so long I suppose I brought it on myself. My right headphone just stopped working. 🙂

I was playing Elite Dangerous at the time so there was really not much activity going on when it failed. I tried swapping the headphones. Loosening and tightening the headphone screw but nope. It's dead.

I can however get the right headphone to start working if extend the strap to just the right position. 1mm forward/back it stops. Sadly this sweet spot is not when the headset is resting on my face.

I sincerely hope this is not an issue that will impact everyone at some point. My headset doesn't really get a lot of use. Maybe 4-10 hours a week tops since launch.

It would be nice if Oculus could let people know if there was a way for us toavoid having this happen to us. Even tell us we're "holding wrong" would be better than having this sort of failure.

Time to contact support. 

CPU: i5 6600K (conservative overclock), GPU: Asus GTX1080Ti (not overclocked), motherboard: Asus Z170 Pro Gaming, USB Card 1: Inatek 4 Port, USB Card 2: Startek 2 Port

RedRizla
Honored Visionary
I don't think using a ribbon cable on something that is constantly been moved was such a good idea. Especially when there is no repair for it. Couldn't they have just used something like a cable plugged into the side of the headset and had a replacement cable you could order?