The Warthog Firmware Issue: For Anyone Else Having Problems

[apoll]

Hello. I have been having real problems with my Warthog, and indeed my MFDs after a major computer update. I now seem to have solved them, with the help of Thrustmaster Technical Department. I want to outline what worked for me so any other poor bugger having the same problems has a head start in solving them.

 

The Problem. I upgraded to an Asus x99 Deluxe motherboard and SLI 980s ect. I also went from Win 7 to Win 8.1 64 bit. As you may know, the new motherboard had predominantly USB 3 slots, and as you probably won't know, Win 8.1 introduced a new way of managing power to these USB ports. Both facts are relevant, as it turned out.

 

The Symptoms. The computer suddenly became unstable when it booted up with the USB peripherals attached. In particular, Win would not recognise my Warthog joystick: it was listed as a 'Bootloader', and to make matters worse, when I tried to update the firmware, it would not load, and consistently failed at step 2 with the error message of 0x0000000c. I ended up with both my joystick and throttle without any firmware at all, and always being listed as Bootloader when I attached the cables into the USB slots. So..unstable computer that hung randomly on loading, and Warthog throttle and joystick not working.

 

What I Tried. I first unloaded everything to do with the Warthog, re downloaded all the latest drivers and tried to reload drivers. No good; did not work. Then I followed the Thrustmaster advice on their website to 'wake up' Bootloader joysticks. I followed the instructions to the letter; this did NOT work, no matter how many times I followed it. Next, I tried setting up the Warthog on a seperate, older machine, with only USB 2 ports. No good. Did not work either; the firmware update kept failing at step 2 with error 0x0000000c. I was in despair.

 

What Finally Worked For Me. I sent an email, in my despair, to TM support. In the meantime, I trawled the web. There was ONE post on the SimHQ website, just one, about a guy complaining about Win nit booting properly with a Warthog attached. The solution was to go into the BIOS to disable something called xHCI mode in the USB configuration settings. The guy disabled the xHCI mode and it sorted the problem. Upon doing research, I discovered that Intel xHCI controlled the USB ports: xHCI equalled having the USB ports active. Turn it off, and the ports reverted to USB 2. So the problem had something to do with peripherals, especially the Warthog HOTAS, being plugged into this Intel controlled xHCI USB 3 ports. Something was not gelling. So what I tried was to turn off in my BIOS the xHCI mode, then reloaded the Warthog drivers, following the prompts, and IT ALL WORKED! Especially, the firmware updated with no problems. My HOTAS was with firmware again, and recognised by the computer again, and working. I then turned the xHCI back to enabled again, and the settings stayed, and the HOTAS was still ok. I might point out here that I had it plugged into USB 3 ports; putting it into the USB 2 ports did not help when it was playing up.

 

The second thing I did related to the way Win 8.1 managed the power settings of the USB ports. There was a work around in the TM message to me that dealt with apparent problems that this new power management arrangemnet of the USB ports that Win 8.1 used. Microsoft has acknowledged that the way Win 8.1 manages the ports has caused lots of compatibility y problems with USB devices. Apparently, the new power arrangement turns power off to the device when Windows thinks it is sleeping or not active. This causes problems, loading, disconnecting and reloading devices to the computer seemingly randomly. It was particularly evident when I attached the TM MFDs. They flicked on and off constantly, flashing lights and causing the computer to bleep constantly, and generally have a heart attack. What I did was to go into device manager, and located the HID device of game controller, click on it, go to device details and find the device path in the registry. I copied the HID/PID unique numerical line, opened Regedit, found the appropriate line under Current, System, Enum, USB, and then TURNED OFF a thing called EnhancedPowerManagement by setting the string entry to 0. This stopped Windows from managing the power of devices attached through the problematic USB ports. Microsoft has a detailed set of instructions on their site to specifically allow people to use this workaround to deal with problematic USB devices. It absolutely worked; the computer became more stable and the MFDs stopped disconnecting, and now behave themselves. I have yet to get to the bottom of the Intel xHCI thingy, but there is a problem I think with the way it relates on newer motherboards and legacy USB devices, which is what all of us have.

 

Conclusion. What did I learn? The way Win 8.1 mangers power to the USB ports, especially USB 3 ports, is problematic and causes problems with devices, such as Warthog joysticks and throttles and MFDs. (Btw, it also caused issues with my Saitek combat flight pedals.) the way to fix it was to turn off in Registry by Regedit this enhanced power management. I also switched the BIOS setting of USB configuration of Intel xHCI to Enabled from AutoSmart...after I had disabled it to fix the Warthog (which did the trick). Any instability, and I will play around with the xHCI setting in the BIOS.

 

Hope this is/will be helpful to users in the future. Happy to expand on anything I wrote here.

 

Apoll :thumbup:

[CookPassBabtridge]

You sir are an absolute gentleman :)

 

I have been having this exact same problem with the exact same hardware, except I had not tried a firmware update - mine are running on the old one, so I am guessing if I had tried to update I would have run into the same horrible issue!

 

Its so good to finally find out why this is happening. The next issue is, how do you even start the firmware update in 8.1? The instructions on their site seem to be for an OS that still has a sensible start menu, as opposed to 8.1's non-menu :(

 

EDIT: Just seen how old this post is lol. Hope you are still around. Tried to rep but can't :D

[TwoLate]

I have 8.1 also. I will update if I get fix.

[CookPassBabtridge]

Hi chaps

 

So, I went to the windows search box and just put in firmware, and it found a little program with a TM logo. Sure enough it was the TM updater.

 

Its put in VERY old firmware though - the throttle is from 2013 and the joystick from 2011. According to TM site these are the most recent, so the chances of it fixing the X99 boot problem is very small

[TwoLate]

I have X97 issues with Windows 8.1. This might seem crazy or placebo but this what happened. I downloaded the utility on windows 8.1 and did not work. Took a thumb drive and moved it to a windows 7 old laptop. That did not work. Uninstalled it on laptop. Downloaded it from my laptop and installed that one it worked. Could just downloading it from windows 8.1 and X97 chipset corrupt the file enough to not work? Re-downloading from a old laptop with Windows 7 worked. Strange.