Problems with ZWO ASI533MM

[Gerard]

Hi,
I’m having issues running Sharp Cap Pro on a new ZWO 533MM (second camera).
Re driver updates, my laptop running Windows 10 is current.
Drivers for ZWO, Sharp Cap Pro are current.

A solar imaging friend is suggesting that it may be the USB cable. He says,

“I've just gone through a collection of USB3 cables (about six of them!) which couldn't handle the ASI 178 fast frames on the Mini SHG”.

As for hardware, the laptop in use is a 64-bit operating system running 8GB of RAM.
It is a 2-year-old HP Pavilion Power Laptop 15 cb0xx with an Intel(R)) Core ™ i7-7700HQ CPU@2.8GH processor with the camera connected to a USB 3 slot.

Today I added a powered USB Hub with limited success. Sharp Cap is up to date.
I’m not sure what to do next to get this camera running consistently without the camera shutting off and getting messages like “USB connection not recognized”.

Constructive suggestions from ASI533MM users welcomed on how to get it working properly.

Thanks Gerard

[admin]

Hi Gerard,

I think that the 'USB device not recognized' message is coming from Windows, which means that the camera is failing to identify itself properly when plugged in.

The first thing to try is to change everything that you can

* Different USB3 cable
* Different port on the computer
* Different computer

There certainly have been issues with faulty cables in the past, and I have also seen issues with an incompatibility between some USB3 ports and some camers, but typically only on much older PC hardware. At this stage, make sure you are not using any extension cables, as they can cause issues if the total length of the USB3 cable goes much over 3 to 3.5m.

There is a forums post on USB troubleshooting which contains the suggestions above and a fair few more, it's worth working through those to see if you can get to a point where everything works nicely. If you really can't make it work nicely even with a different PC then there is of course a small possibility of a hardware issue. I have seen a few cameras that fail in a way that stops them working on USB3 but they still manage to work on USB2 in the past.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=349&p=1556#p1556

cheers,

Robin