Difficulties with Alienware 18 laptop and Oculus Rift

What is the Oculus Rift doing. Is it detected but no display(orange light), not seen at all, etc. Bit more info on the Rift will help as there could be many factors.

For now though, try hitting F5, or might be FN+F5, and force it to use the dual Nvida instead of the onboard Intel. Also try not to use USB3.

I've just been trying to set my dk2 up on my Alienware 18 today for the first time and run into problems too.

The dk2 just has the orange power light on, but the config utility just says "no device attached". All the ports on this laptop are usb3 so stuck with these. If you get anywhere with yours please comment on here :) if I get somewhere with mine, I'll let you know.

Its worth a try. Uninstall the current USB3 drivers, restart and try these instead.

downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx;ProdId=3467&DwnldID=22824&ProductFamily=Software+Products&ProductLine=Chipset+Software&ProductProduct=Intel%C2%AE+USB+3.0+eXtensible+Host+Controller+Driver&lang=eng

EDIT: Link for instructions/more info
http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/SLN179232/EN

Thanks for the reply Ganjatobi, the driver you linked is for windows 7, I probably should have said that I'm on Windows 8.1, and I'd guess DWells99 is too (can you confirm?).

I cant see a windows 8 version of this driver if I look here

cheers,

Pete

Thanks to you both for your rapid responses and suggestions. My issue is identical to Pete's:

High-spec Alienware 18; Windows 8.1; Oculus Rift with a yellow light. The Rift is recognised by the computer, but the Oculus Configuration Utility thinks that there is nothing connected.

I have tried FN+F5, but no success. I think the probably must be the inability of the Rift to use USB 3.0 ports. Unfortunately, that's all we have on an Alienware 18. Very frustrating!

I have ordered a USB 2.0 hub as Tech-support at Oculus suggested that this might get around the problem (but made no guarantees it would work without issues!). I guess I will have the hub in a few days and will let you know if I have any luck.

All the best

D.

Hi guys,

Well I've now got a USB 2.0 hub and connected the rift to that. Unfortunately the behaviour is still exactly the same: orange light on the rift, and it is not detected. I hope you have better luck with your hub D.

This is the hub I'm using www.amazon.co.uk/.../B009R921SE, it does mention "forwards compatible with usb 3.0", which I'm assuming is just a gimmick since usb 3 devices will work in usb 2 ports. Maybe I'm wrong and I've chosen the wrong hub!

For a bit of further information, looking under device manager I can see an entry under imaging devices for "oculus positional tracker" and under human interface devices i have a "HID-compliant device" with a hardware id of 2833, which I understand is the rift?

D, did you say that you had contacted Oculus about the problem? I'm tempted to do the same, did you use their forums, or did you email them?

Cheers,

Pete

Hmmm, I'm not sure what else to suggest. My rift worked straight out of the box on my 18x. No hubs, drivers etc. My setup differs from yours(Win 7, dual ATI).

This morning though, I turned it on, and fair enough it was not detected. I tried for hours, and even factory reset it.

But got it working again. What I found (in my case) is that the HDMI cable or port is a bit weird. I unplugged it, and push it back in with quite a bit of force, and it detected it.

If you can, maybe try another HDMI cable, or just push it hard. Make sure everything else is plugged in. I have also heard that the rift hates Optimus, try disabling that in the BIOS.

Also try to upgrade the firmware, if it does and restarts in boot mode, then it most likely is the HDMI

Hi Pete,

In answer to your question, I posted on an Oculus forum and also emailed their tech support. Still no solution for me yet. How about you? Ganjatobi said he had a bit of a problem with his HDMI connection, which echoes something someone said on the Oculus forum (apparently the cables supplied sometimes fail and need to be replaced). Could it be that simple? Seems like long shot but would be great if that's the only issue.

All the best

Dagan

Hi guys,

Well, like Dave, the USB 2.0 hub didn't solve the problem for me. Ganjatobi, I will try your other suggestions tonight. Just to confirm, your computer only has USB 3.0, same as Dave and me, right? Thanks again for trying to help.

All the best

Dagan

Hi Dagan,

Still no joy over here either. I'm pretty happy that the rift itself and the cabling is ok, I can use it with no problems on my desktop machine. So it's probably fairly safe to suggest that it's likely that your issue is not down to your HDMI cable since your symptoms are the same as mine? Ganjatobi good thought on disabling the nvidia optimus, i'll give that a try this week and report back.

cheers,

Pete

Success! Ganjatobi was 100% correct. There's nothing wrong with the DK2, the cables or the USB ports. The issue is the HDMI port. Yesterday night I really pushed in the HDMI connector hard and all of a sudden the DK2 was visible to the Oculus Config Utility. It was as simple as that! I had plugged and unplugged the cables 100 times, but never considered the possibility that I might need to ram in the HDMI like this. Ganjatobi, thanks very much for your help with this. I am now flying around in Elite Dangerous, enjoying the stellar vistas like never before! It's a bit juddery here and there, so I probably don't have it perfectly set up yet, but still pretty fantastic. Good luck Pete, hope this works for you too.

Good to hear mate. Take it easy on the HDMI port though. :P You don't need to force to hard. If it still has warranty, perhaps consider a mobo replacement, I'm thinking of doing the same.

Ha! it works like a charm, thank you guys very much! No too much force was needed, just a little extra pressure to ensure it was seated firmly.

thanks again guys,

Pete