Ultimarc Optipac issue, control resets after reboot

[martin.walvin]

Hi guys.

Has anyone had any issues with the Opti-PAC?   I’m using win7 64 and mame64 and interfacing the controls on my pole position arcade machine.  Everything works spot on,  managed to get steering, pot for pedal, brakes everything working fine. 

To get the steering working with the Opti-PAC I had to launch the downloadable utility for the optipac from the website, then click on the control I wanted to set to “high” I think it is, which then makes it work with windows as a mouse input...  works great. 

However after switching the pc off, then back on the controls have reset and the steering doesn’t work until I launch the Opti-PACs utility again and select the control to set it to high again.  It doesn’t seem to remember the setting after a reboot. 

I’ve contacted Andy from Ultimarc and he said it should remember, and is going to look into it, but I just wondered if anyone has had the same issue and if they managed to find a fix?

Many thanks.

[Mr. Peabody]

Is there a 'save' button in the software GUI?

[martin.walvin]

No.  You just select which contolrs you want to use by clicking a box then click “send”

The light on he Opti-PAC board flashed then it works.  Switch pc off then you have to do it over again. 

[Mr. Peabody]

Bad ram or whatever stores the settings. NV not being NV.

[martin.walvin]

I’ve tried the optipac on a different pc and it’s fine.

So it must be a setting on the pc in the arcade cab...  but no idea what?  Andy at Ultimarc mentioned looking in bios for usb or keyboard/mouse settings or legacy usb support but I can’t find anything. 

He said to test it,  with a multimeter test between ground and p1 x1 and should read 5v.   Launch the utility and set the p1 setting which sets the control to “high” or whichever setting it is (check box for designated setting),  then test again with multimeter between ground and p1 x1 and should read 0v,  which it does.  This is now set.
Optic controls work fine.  If I unplug usb lead to optipac,  plug back it,  it remembers setting and stays at 0v. 

If I restart pc,  it goes back to 5v,   But it shouldn’t. 

No idea why and Andy at Ultimarc is stumped also...

[Mr. Peabody]

Something in that machine is re-setting the device. Un-stall your usb drivers. Re-start. Re-install them.

Something else comes to mind: are you soft re-starting, or hard-re-starting by removing power? If the latter, there could be some restore point thing going on.

That could also be affecting the bios settings, if the cmos battery isn't working. Show us pictures of your bios pages.

[martin.walvin]

Thanks for your help.  I’ll get some pictures of bios screen.

I do both when powering off,  I’ve tried shutting power off by unplugging and also restarting. All other times I’ve used pcs in arcade cabs I’ve just pulled power from wall, and changed settings on pc so you don’t get a msg saying pc was not powered off correctly etc...

I’ll try the drivers and see what happens....

[martin.walvin]

Not sure if this is what I needed to take pics of but here’s some settings...

I’ve no idea with this thing now.  Cmos battery is fine as far as I know.  Holds date time etc ok

[martin.walvin]

Something in that machine is re-setting the device. Un-stall your usb drivers. Re-start. Re-install them.

Something else comes to mind: are you soft re-starting, or hard-re-starting by removing power? If the latter, there could be some restore point thing going on.

That could also be affecting the bios settings, if the cmos battery isn't working. Show us pictures of your bios pages.

I’ve tried uninstalling the device, restart and plug back in. It installed drivers ok straight away worked with the steering without even setting it up with the utility.  As soon as you switch off and back on again it’s reset.

[Mr. Peabody]

If you have another Pac controller, see whether it behaves. If not, you know it is your machine, though I think that is obvious. Might be BIOS-related, in the Power options. Again, un-install the [USB] drivers. All of them.

What's the history of this machine? That bios makes me think an Enterprise kit, or some obscure office machine. Is it a server?

[martin.walvin]

It was a recon pc off eBay.  I put a fresh install of win7 when I got it.  I did streamline the setup for gaming as I originally bought it for a new arcade build a while back but never used it. So I’ve used it for this Pole Position project. There’s nothing on it, no antivirus or anything.  Everything like win defender etc has been stopped from running at startup. Its pretty much bare bones, but this makes me think somthings maybe turned off that shouldn’t be? Although I’ve don’t exactly same with another win7 64bit pc, streamlined for gaming and that’s fine.  I’ve tried the optipac on another machine and it’s fine.

[martin.walvin]

Totally stumped with this!  Wiped hard drive and Reinstalled win 7 from scratch.  Still the same problem.
Anyone any ideas?   Asked loads of people I know and nobody has a clue with this.

[nai1ed]

I know this is an old post, but just wanted to say that I have the exact same issue with my blasteroids spinner and the optipac. I have to set active-high in the utility at every boot up. I'm using an old HP small form factor PC with windows 7. I'm glad I'm not the only person with this problem.