input stutter caused by monitor's USB hub?

[ann0yanc3]

just put together a new system (in sig), and i've been playing Crysis Warhead and Left4Dead. i have a Dell 24" with built-in card reader and USB hub. i hooked the monitor USB to system USB so that i could just plugin my keyboard and mouse into it instead of the system underneath my desk. i have an Apple keyboard and a Razer DeathAdder mouse.

while playing Crysis, everything is fine, smooth as butter, no problems. but, in Left4Dead, i started noticing that my input (kb/mouse) would start to lag/stutter after playing for about 15-20 mins. nothing else would stutter, FPS never dipped, game itself never lagged. i would just get input lag/stutter for about a second. then it would return to normal (if i moved the mouse during the stutter, the crosshair would jump to where it was supposed to be).

i initially thought it may be overheating, or perhaps an unstable overclock, but it made no sense as Crysis was working just fine. then i thought it may have been a bad HDD, but i ran several test and everything was fine.

i came to the conclusion that it could be the monitor's USB hub. so, i plugged the kb/mouse directly into the system, and now everything appears to be fine. no lag, no stutter.

the weirdest thing about this is that the latest time that it happened, my audio also started to lag and stutter, and eventually the game crapped out.

all is well now, but why would this happen as a result of a USB hub, and why in only one game? i don't understand. anyone care to shed some light?

P.S. the bold and color highlights are for the abridged version of this post

 

[engiNURD]

what are your temps like?
test the gpu with furmark and log temps.
test the cpu/ram with prime95 blend test and log temps.
what are your hdd temps as well? hd tune reports this, as do other utils.

i wouldn't think a usb hub would affect your audio and other things, but anything is possible. make sure you have the latest win updates as well as drivers for your vidcard/audio.

 

[Taikero]

For what it's worth, I get the same thing under Win7 with the USB hub on a Dell 2209WA. I have a G15 keyboard plugged into the hub, then the USB key for my MX Revolution plugged into that. Any time the processor seems taxed (opening a new page in firefox, while playing games, etc.) the mouse momentarily freezes and the keyboard's display gets garbled, flashes, text displays backward, then flashes back to normal and mouse function resumes.

This happened last time I installed Win7, and even formatting didn't fix it. I was able to solve the problem last time I installed Win7, though I can't remember how. >_>; Manually uninstalling/reinstalling the hub in Win7 didn't do the trick. Maybe I installed the official drivers from Dell's website, I can't recall.

Plugging the keyboard into a port on the computer fixes the problem, oddly enough.

 

[ann0yanc3]

what are your temps like?
test the gpu with furmark and log temps.
test the cpu/ram with prime95 blend test and log temps.
what are your hdd temps as well? hd tune reports this, as do other utils.

i wouldn't think a usb hub would affect your audio and other things, but anything is possible. make sure you have the latest win updates as well as drivers for your vidcard/audio.

oddly enough, i got the same problem last night without going through the USB hub. the mouse was fine, but the keyboard was acting up, then the sound started to stutter. it wasn't a stutter in the normal sense. it seemed as though the sounds were blending together. kinda sounded like early electronic sounds or something. then the system hard-locked after i alt-tabbed backed into windows to check out temps.

CPU temps don't seem to reach 50C during play
memtest+ 4.00 reports no errors in the memory
IntelBurnTest shows a max of 72C after 5 passes (no errors)
HD temps are in the mid 30's celsius max
max GPU temp in FurMark after 10mins is 87C

very weird as this doesn't happen in Crysis.

 

[Mozex]

I have a similar problem with the USB ports on my laptop dock at work. I actually use an 8-port powered hub plugged into one of the built-in ports on the laptop because the docking station ports make the mouse and keyboard stutter like crazy.