Atik 383L USB crashes during download of images

[howshaw]

This may have been covered before, if so I am sorry, please point me to the right forum topic.  However I have searched the forum and can't find anything that matches my problem.

I have an Atik 383L (serial number 1850864856, protocol ver 3.19) and I am running Artemis Capture 4.2.0.0 with ArtemisHSC v354 on a Windows XP SP3 machine.  The USB driver is "Atikusb.sys 1.06.0510.0 release, built by winDDK".
The camera is connected using the supplied USB cable into a 5m powered active USB cable into a USB port directly onto the PC motherboard.  I have a 10A 12V industrial switchmode PSU that powers the 383L and filterwheel, a Syncscan HEQ5 mount and a few other items.  When fully loaded about 3A is taken in total.  The voltage at the camera is 12.5V.

Artemis Capture starts OK and I hear the camera's shutter click.  The windows appear and everything works OK.  I can get the camera's information from the PC.
I can setup the exposure, binning etc. and capture a few images OK.
Then the camera does its exposure as normal and the bottom right of the main window shows "downloading" as usual.  The bottom right of the main window then shows "downloading 0%" and freezes for ever.  If I click in the main window the title changes to have "(not responding)" in it.
Artemis Capture has frozen.
I can kill Artemis Capture with the task manager.
If I try to restart Artemis Capture it puts up a dialog box saying that it can't find a camera.
If I leave the camera powered but unplug the USB and reconnect then Windows detects the removal/reconnection of the camera but Artemis Capture still will not work.
If I remove and reconnect the camera's power but leave the USB connected then Windows detects the removal/reconnection of the camera and Artemis Capture will start up OK and I get a couple more images before it happens again.
I believe that there is a problem with the USB.  I have looked closely at the USB hardware and I think I am doing everything correctly.  I believe my power supply is OK for the camera and that other devices attached are not injecting noise into either the power feed or the USB.

Can anyone help please.

[NickK]

I think there may be a later version of the drivers in the support section that may be worth a try.

I'd contact support too - just in case they have seen something similar.

[howshaw]

I have downloaded the latest firmware for the camera but I haven't dared run the upload.  If the USB connection really is at fault what might happen?  If the USB packs up half way through upgrading the firmware could it kill the camera?

[NickK]

I can't really speak for the windows driver & firmware uploader - if you're in doubt contact support.

It does sound like the camera is dropping out - one thing to look at first is if the Windows "Device Manager" sees the camera disappear during an image download; which would point at a hardware issue.. (dry joint etc). If that's the case - again, it's a chat to support.

I stepped on my USB cable and ripped the socket out of the camera - they had it back to me the following day!

[howshaw]

I had a look though the Windows XP registry (I wrote a simple Windows application using the Windows SetUpAPI to scan for all the hardware Windows thinks has ever been installed) and found several entries that looked like corrupted entries for the Atik camera.  Some had bad VID/PID values and things like unlikely power settings.  So I backed up the entire machine, erased the dark drives and installed a fresh copy of Windows XP including the latest Atik drivers freshly downloaded.  It took all day but now I have a working camera.  I have no idea what had happened to the Windows registry, it might have been some other program writing into the registry or a failed install of something else.  I'm not going to follow it up any further, it works now, and I'm not going to pick at it.  I gave up trying to understand Windows years ago.

[NickK]

Good to see you have it fixed; and I agree with the annoying windows point - hence my OSX drivers!