[SOLVED] Valve Index Disconnecting from USB

[nordie]

I got my Valve Index near the end of March. I experienced grey screen 'tracking' issues pretty much constantly (was never able to get through even a single song in Beat Saber without it happening multiple times).

After going through a long, arduous troubleshooting process, I got an RMA from Valve and was sent a new HMD. A quick list of the things I tried (which didn't improve the symptoms at all) is below:

• Making sure system was completely up to date
• Disabling Windows Defender Firewall
• Disabling USB power management (through Steam Developer Options and manually through Windows Control Panel)
• Repositioning base stations (they were temporarily below head level during setup, and then were mounted to the wall about 8 feet from the floor in my apartment which has a standard height ceiling).
• Switching the locations of each base station
• Recalibrating the room
• Switching to every available USB port
• Running in safe mode
• Checking over all connections on trident, breakaway, HMD
• Running the headset on a different machine (Note that my other machine is identical, but has a Sapphire RX 580 instead of XFX)
• Covering all reflective surfaces in the area (TVs, counters, windows, picture frames, any items with metallic/glossy surfaces, whiteboards, etc.)
• Turning off all electronic devices (wireless router, modem, additional computers, cell phones, tablets, video game consoles, microwave, all devices that use bluetooth such as headphones)
• Removing batteries from all remotes
• Turning off all lights

The new headset has the exact same issues. I've read that some people have resolved similar issues by installing a dedicated USB, so I purchased this card and installed it in my machine: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Dual-Port-Card-USB/dp/B072PVCDM9

When plugged into this card I am still experiencing the same issues. I have tested disabling USB Power Management through the Windows Control Panel with this card.

If I run USBDeview I can visibly see the HMD disappearing and reappearing in the list of connected devices. How could this be happening with a dedicated port?

The motherboard on my machine is an ASRock X370 Pro4. It has 2 PCIe 3.0 x16 and 4 PCIe 2.0 x1 expansion slots. The StarTech card I'm using has an x4 slot. This Wikipedia article suggests that "Cards with a differing number of lanes need to use the next larger mechanical size (i.e. a x2 card uses the x4 size, or a x12 card uses the x16 size). "

Is it possible that the builtin USB ports on my motherboard aren't great, and have been the original cause of my issue?
It is also possible that trying to run my x4 StarTech card in an x16 slot is limiting its functionality in a way that produces the same issue?

I would really appreciate any technical insight that might help my come up with the next best action to take towards resolving this issue. I'm ready to upgrade my motherboard, but would like to get some opinions from people who understand this better than I do.

Machine Information:
Windows 10 Pro
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600
MOBO: ASRock X370 Pro4
RAM: 16GB 2666MHz DDR4, Corsair Vengeance LPX (2x8GB)
GPU: XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition
PSU: Corsair CS750M V2
SSD: Samsung 860 EVO Series 2.5" 500GB

 

[digitalgriffin]

There was a known issue where if you had more than one device on the same USB channel, that the device would timeout/disconnect. The problem was the data rate was extremely high pushing the limits of 5Gbps USB 3.0 bandwidth.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but a channel can have 1, or 2 usb ports. (Usually 2) Usually ports that are stacked 2 high are on the same channel.

I put my keyboard and mouse in their appropriate USB 2.0 ports on the far corner. I didn't use the front USB 3.0 connector, and made sure my valve index was the only connection on that vertical channel on the rear.