Vetra question

[Catamer]

Anyone out there still hardware boxing and using a Vetra?

I've quit playing wow at the last release and I've been four boxing City of Heroes. CoH doesn't allow the use of software broadcasting of keystrokes so I brought out my Vetra and starting using that.

I'm using the Vetra with an x-keys and the problem I'm having is the vetra (or the xkeys) seems to break down when I need it most like when I'm spamming a button. The x-keys USB device gets de-registered on all of the PC and then re-registered and it take about 5-10 seconds for that to happen and I die. There are also other problems that happen sometimes while using the vetra. One of the PCs sound card gets a large crackling sound in it and if I disconnect the USB to the vetra it seems to clear up. One day the vetra (or the xkeys) was spamming keystrokes to the PCs and I had to reboot all of them.

Has anyone else using a vetra or xkeys see these kinds of problems? I'm wondering if I have a ground fault since each PC is on it's own UPS. Maybe I should force all of the PCs to have a common ground.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I should very shortly (less then a week) have a usb splitter Vetra competitor for about $60 per computer (includes both mouse and keyboard). Limitations will be that you can't turn it off (i.e. keyboard and mouse sends signals to all computers all the time) and that you can't send information from the computer to the keyboard / mouse (like the G15 panel won't work).

Otherwise its almost impossible to have the problems you discribe with my stuffs. Plus mine will be faster as there is no switching involved.

[Catamer]

well, I grounded the PCs together using some speaker wire. this made the vetra much more stable except that the UPS hated it. The first power spike and 3 of the 4 PCs shutdown instead of being protected like they have always been in the past.

sigh....
I can't live without the UPS because the power sucks here and the vetra doesn't work if I use them.
I get power spikes 3-4 times a week here.

[ElectronDF]

Aren't there two kinds of UPS? AVR and battery-backup? One takes power from the wall and sends it into the battery and then takes out fresh power and sends it to the computers, so the computers never see the power from the wall. And the battery-backup version is just a fast switching way to get power out of the battery. Maybe one way works better for your situation (Vetra).

I got the buzzing from my stereo that had an USB output. I just didn't use the USB part. Sorry, that doesn't help, other than to mention there might be items that cause interference. It is probably the item. The Vetra probably makes a floating ground or something different that lets it work with multiple computers. So it might take some fiddling to get it to work. As you have already seen. I wouldn't worry that it won't, just that you might have to work at it. Maybe a ground isolator for the computer that get buzzing.

Are all the compents plugged into the USP (computers, Vetra and such)? Yeah, it would make the UPS last for 5 secs if the power tripped, but it might fix things. Then you just buy a 1.8 Gigawatt UPS with a flux capacitor.

[Catamer]

I've done some more test. I set it up so that only one computer was connected to the Vetra and tried to use the keyboard through it. every once in a while it goes into a key repeat mode that is only stopped when a new key is pressed. for example using notepad I typed a common phrase.

now is the time for all goodddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddden .

I now believe that the repeating keys is what's killing me. maybe my vetra got zapped with all of the power spikes. anyone else using a vetra see anything like this?