GF-166 and GF-46 Lighting Up

CPC900

Ok, I hope someone can help me with this; it's driving me CRAZY! When I load up P3D, everything loads up fine, except the GF-166 and GF-46. I have to unplug and then plug them in again, while in P3D to get them to work. Sometimes though, it will kick me back to windows when I do that. The 2 modules show up fine in GF Config and GIT, but it is just the damn lights and numbers show nothing.
I had 2 usb, non powered hubs, and then replaced them with 2 usb powered hubs (hoping that would do the trick), but no luck. They are 2.0 USB hubs, btw. And they are NOT plugged into 3.0 usb ports, only 2.0. So, I have no idea what to do to fix this. Thanks for any help and guidance anyone can give.

Bruce

CPC900

Nevermind. Re-install of goflight software did the trick

Bruce

Jockeyboy2_0

Those specific modules "may" return to Not Lighting Up after any windows Update - the windows registry selects these items (Including the Gf-45) for Enhanced power management.

The quick Solution is to open Registrry Editor (regedit) then navigate to: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB in the left hand panel.
Then open a search box and search for: EnhancedPowerManagementEnabled
where ever you see a 1 Change it too a 0
This disables the power management and will light up your panels when its receiving data.

*NOTE*
You may have to do this again when a MAJOR update comes to windows its microsoft that changes it back there is nothing wrong with the software and doesn't need a re-installation.

Cheers
Lee

RayProudfoot

Lee, thanks for your post. Am I right in thinking turning that option off is the same as deselecting the option in Device Manager, USB device, Power Management tab?

If so I still have a problem with one of my two GF-166 units. They are 16 years old but generally still work okay but are more problematic since changing to Windows 10.

I’m convinced one is male and the other female. The male one for Comms always works. The second that is assigned to Nav is probably female. Sometimes it works, sometimes it goes blank for no obvious reason. I’ve even bought a new USB2 power hub as the previous one wasn’t compatible with 10. I’ve unplugged all GoFlight devices and plugged just the female one in but still it goes blank when the GFConfig software is used. But load up P3D and the displays initially show 100.00 before changing to the correct numbers when the sim is fully loaded.

Ive updated 10 to build 1903 a couple of weeks ago and I’m sure that is causing the issues because the 166s were okay before that. I hope when he returns Steve will ask John Krueger at GoFlight to investigate the 166 as it exhibits problems that really shouldn’t exist.

admin_pps

Check Windows has not re-enabled USB power management on your hubs and GoFlight devices.

Best wishes
Steve

RayProudfoot

Steve, that's the first thing I check. Flying now. The NAV GF166 kept blanking after 10 secs or so when on the ground and taxiing. I just kept pressing the left button to turn the display back on. Did it a few times soon after take-off. It's now staying on! I'm going to swap USB cables with the other 166 that gives me no problems after the flight.

Totally bizarre behaviour. Nice to see you back. Hope you're feeling better.

RayProudfoot

I've discovered my GFWindows8Fixer.log. Attached for info. I have eight GF units - MCP Pro, EFIS, 2xT8, 2x166, 1xP8 and 1xGF-LGT. All 8 units appear to be correctly identified in the log. 15 mins since my last post and the Nav 166 is still lit.

RayProudfoot

The NAV GF166 was fine for the rest of the flight. I've just shut down P3D and run GFWindows8Fixer. No interface or message but on opening GFConfig afterwards the Nav display stayed on for as long as the app was open. Maybe that's fixed it. Indeed it has. The lights have stayed on for over a minute now in GFConfig and that never happened before.

So the solution as well as turning off Power Mgmt and follow the steps in Lee's post above is to run GFWindows8Fixer.exe.

RayProudfoot

I powered up my PC this evening to check if the GF166 units were working okay. Frustrating to report the NAV GF166 was still playing silly buggers and displaying GF...166 then going blank when the GFConfig software was running.

I read the GF readme and finally discovered what I had been doing wrong. It states that if you get the blanking problem disconnect the devices, run GFWindows8Fixer and then reconnect them. I had been running it with them still connected.

I unplugged the power cord to the powered hub which does the same thing as unplugging them and ran GFWindows8Fixer. Reconnected power and launched P3D. The 166s show 100.00 once the GF DLL is launched and then change to frequencies when a scenario is loaded.

That now seems to have fixed it as a reboot and loading P3D again still had the 166s displaying correctly. So when all else fails... read the readme!

zoelenaw

Hi Ray,

Thanks for your reaction. Done everything you suggested and everything has lights, even the MCP...!!
Thanks a lot for your help, is highly appriciated...

Kind regards,

Anton Will van Zoelen

RayProudfoot

Hi Anton. Glad it fixed the problem.