(=+=)_Fanatec CSR customer Review Thread (post yours here)_(=+=)

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I've been using the CSR with elite pedals on FM4 for the past week. I wanted to get a really good feel for the product before I gave any type of review. For the record I own a G27 and use it for GT5, F1 2011 and whatever else comes along.

First the wheel. I think the looks and feel are better than the G27. The plastic parts don't bother me. The wheel works good with FM4 but not as well with F1 2011. I have not tried it with GT5. My understanding is the CSR is belt driven and the G27 is gear driven (?). If it's not then that's how it feels. I prefer the G27 feel for driving. The CSR is smooth as glass but the G27 feels more, well, real. The CSR is too slow with F1 2011. I feel as if there is a force holding the wheel and slowing it down. Also, setting it up to work with the game is a major pain. The game does not recognize it so I have to go into setting to get it to work very time. Several times I started the game either the force feedback or the pedals weren't working. That is really not the fault of the wheel though as the game support is lacking.

My summary on the wheel would have to be that I've used a G27 too long and simply prefer it.

The elite pedals are another story. They are superior to the G27. This is due to the brake pedal. I don't shift so I can't comment on the clutch. The gas pedal needs a little more resistance in my opinion. These are heavy and worth the money. They have an adapter for the G27 so I may consider it.
 
A real car steering wheel doesn't have the cogging feeling that a gear driven steering wheel like the G27 has.

From the logitech blog: http://blog.logitech.com/2009/08/17/new-logitech-g27-racing-wheel-for-pc-gaming/
The most significant improvement is the introduction of a helical gear system to the force feedback transmission. As with the G25, the G27 features a dual-motor, single-reduction force feedback transmission supported by two sets of steel ball bearings. Instead of straight-cut (or “spur”) gears, however, we’ve developed the first force-feedback transmission for racing wheels featuring diagonal-cut (“helical”) gears.
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Actually this was the last attempt for making a high end product using gear drive so far. The high end wheels on or coming on the market now feature either one or two motors with single or dual belt drive.
The Thrustmaster T500 RS is single motor dual belt drive. The CSR is single motor single belt drive (as far as I know), the CSR Elite and CSW will both have dual motors and dual belts.
So going for more smoother action belt drive is the trend, instead of using the obsolete gear drive.
 
LogiForce
One of the other concerns and I think other people would like to know, especially when it comes to looks. The glossy black on the wheel and the base, how fingerprint proof is it?
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Not fingerprint proof at all.

Just did a few laps on Forza 4 right after doing some with my PWTS. Transferred all my PWTS settings to the CSR.

As I mentioned earlier....the wheel feels great in your hands and at least for me anyway has a nice comfortable and natural grip.....I don't feel like I'm doing anything unnatural in terms of my grip so it's easy to have your hands relax which makes driving easier. The way your thumbs hook around the grips makes it really easy to control the wheel when the FFB gets strong.

Speaking of FFB it feels stronger to me than my PWTS. It also feels more refined so to speak. I think the combination of the lighter wheel and perhaps some tweaking on the motor control electronics by Fanatec has this providing the best FFB of any Fanatec wheel to date. The differences are not mind blowing compared to previous products but they are noticeable. Shaun Cole on ISR talked about feeling the subtleties with the CSR and I think he nailed the observation. You notice very subtle changes in the FFB in this wheel when vehicle dynamics are going through small changes.....things like small bumps, momentary losses of grip, when the front of the car gets light over minute elevation changes....that sort of stuff. I think the older Porsche wheels with the higher center mass absorbed and perhaps took away some of that but with this wheel being so light and made with the materials it is made from does a better job of transferring that stuff. Same goes for the vibration motors in the wheel rim that provide ABS vibtration....it is more pronounced in this wheel than my PWTS. And it goes without saying that the FFB is butter smooth and feels natural like a real car .

The paddle shifters are superb.....there's nothing more to say there. In my mind they're the new standard for feel, comfort and ergonomic location. Many people have asked about the button placement. Being 6 feet tall I don't have small hands so I didnt find the button location a problem for me.....I could easily reach any of the four red buttons with my thumbs without shifting my grip.

All in all I really love the wheel and consider it a step up from my PWTS in every way except for one thing:

And here's my gripe. For some reason or another this wheel makes a very annoying, high pitched whining noise when in XBOX mode. Its not the fans either...it is something else entirely. And it's not quiet either. If you play at low volume you'll clearly hear it and it will likely annoy you. Its a similar sound Ive heard to when a fan is going bad in a PC. The sound apears to be coming from the FFB area of the wheel......be it the FFB motor or it's controller. Its hard to tell without cracking it open to investigate. My PWTS is dead quiet in comparison. I know many others have complained about the problem to Fanatec on the 911wheel.de blog and Fanatec has responded by saying they are looking to a solution for it as it doesn't make the same sound in PC or PS3 mode. Hopefully its something that can be fixed with a firmware update.

Also of note....my wheel up to this point anyway is not experiencing the settings save issue that some others have complained about.

So there you have it. Now excuse me while I go do some Forza.
 
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amf7
Thehawk05

I only had that noise at full lock with the wheel??

Maybe I got lucky
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It could be a random thing otherwise I feel a lot more people would complain I think. It's the kind of noise that makes you think something is defective with the wheel.

The noise bugs me enough that it will affect my decision as to whether I keep the wheel or not.
 
thehawk05
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And here's my gripe. For some reason or another this wheel makes a very annoying, high pitched whining noise when in XBOX mode. Its not the fans either...it is something else entirely. And it's not quiet either. If you play at low volume you'll clearly hear it and it will likely annoy you. Its a similar sound Ive heard to when a fan is going bad in a PC. The sound apears to be coming from the FFB area of the wheel.
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Fanatec has responded by saying they are looking to a solution for it as it doesn't make the same sound in PC or PS3 mode. Hopefully its something that can be fixed with a firmware update.
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Can I ask why you don't feel it's the fan making that noise? It seems clear to me that it's the fan as I can control it by turning the fan on/off (without connecting to the Xbox). And I don't have the same fan issue on my PS3 or PC. For some reason the Xbox forces the fan to full speed but as Fanatec has told me they are working on a firmware correction for this behavior.
 
If its a fan it must be one I can't see. Looking through the right side vent you can see a small fan there. That fun runs constant if you turn the fans on but if you shut it off it doesn't turn on when you put it in Xbox mode so the noise must be coming from either another fan or something else. The noise shifts pitch slightly when you turn the wheel as well.

I'll try to make a vid of the noise later today.....hopefully my iPhone can pick it up.

Hopefully we'll get a firmware fix soon. Obviously it's something to do with a fault in the firmware code otherwise it would do it in all modes.
 
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There should be two fans in the CSR, since the base is the same as previous wheels. One to the right side (which you mentioned) and the other closer to the steering column.

Watch the following video from about 5:50 onwards. You will see that there is a to the right (top left in the video). And one behind the steering wheel cooling the blue heatsink (from the right side in the video, left if you'd look over the wheel) of the FFB motor.



So yeah, my guess is the following. The firmware reads out the motor's temperature and turns on the fan and lets it spin with a certain amount of rotation. Now the code for reading out the temperature and adjusting fan speed accordingly is present separately for both Xbox mode and for PC/PS3 mode. This is due to the fact that XID (Xbox Interface Device) is a totally different way of communicating with the machine you attach your wheel to then HID (Human Interface Device) used on the PC and PS3. Hence the firmware is switchable.
Now getting to where I think the error lies. Since it works in PC/PS3 mode which is basically just an almost exact copy of the GT2 wheel. I think they might have recoded the xbox mode to the likings of Microsoft, T10 and Fanatec. In this process there simply has entered a typo in the code with either how the temperature is reading out, causing it to read out 0 because the temperature resistor diode gives out 0 when it has reached maximum temperature readout possible. This can be cause of there being mismatch of used quotes being double quotes mixed with single quotes. Or maybe forgetting to close a quote. Or simply the fact that there hasn't been placed a ; at the end of a line.
Or there is another possibility, that no matter what the fan will blow at full force because the entire code is not working for whatever reason that lets the temperature read out or contols the fan speed.

I hope Thomas comes across this and might find it helpful, but who knows... maybe he fixed it already and is testing it. But this is my take on what the issue could be.


ps. Sorry I'm getting technical. But I am pretty used to Beta Testing websites, (online)games and programs, and looking through long stretches of code to find the problem. Although I don't consider myself professional or capable enough to code anything from scratch, I am able to read it. Just like being able to read sheet music and play it, but not being able to compose music and write it down.
 
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I see it.

Now that fan I could definitely see making the noise I'm hearing. As I said earlier the sound reminds me of a PC fan gone bad.

At least it appears to be a generic PC fan and could be replaced with a high quality, quiet unit like a Noctua in the future if one wanted to venture that far. I'd harbor a guess that the CSR is easier to disassemble than the Porsche designs which were tricky for removing the wheel.

Nice breakdown on how the code could cause the issue.

I'm somewhat curious but not willing to gamble to find out if the 681 firmware would run on this wheel as that would likely fix it. I have my doubts though as the word is there have been changes to the electronics over the Porsche design. It would be easy enough to flash it and find put.....problem is 701 is nowhere to be found to download to flash it back if it doesn't work.
 
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To replace the fans you don't have to remove the wheel at all, just the top cover of the base itself. Which is only held down by the screws in the bottom.
 
Actually there's another screw at the very top behind the wheel on my 911 which prevents the cover from coming off......the steering wheel needs to come off to get it out. I don't have my CSR on hand right now to look but I assume it's the same assembly. Your vid shows the screw at the 5:39 mark.

Edit: just looked at my CSR. It looks like I can get that screw out without taking the wheel off with a short Allen wrench
 
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thehawk05
Actually there's another screw at the very top behind the wheel on my 911 which prevents the cover from coming off......the steering wheel needs to come off to get it out. I don't have my CSR on hand right now to look but I assume it's the same assembly. Your vid shows the screw at the 5:39 mark.

Edit: just looked at my CSR. It looks like I can get that screw out without taking the wheel off with a short Allen wrench
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I forgot about that one. I thought you could reach it without removing the wheel though. Well, then it's indeed quite a job to replace a fan. lol
They're not my videos though. I don't own a Fanatec wheel as of yet.
 
crooky369
The £150 pedals are putting me off this wheel...

That's crazy money for just pedals, is there really no other cheaper option to buy on the Fanatec website?
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I bought the standard pedals (40 euros) to go with my CSR - first time wheel user, thought id batter some plastic pedals first.

I believe that fanatec have recently discontinued them, but they work quite well if you can find them. they're just plastic and the opposite of premium.
 
I can get it out on the CSR easily with a customized Allen wrench. I can do it on the 911 as well with a customized Philips bit and using a wrench to turn it
 
I opened it up.....it's not the fan. The noise is coming from the FFB motor.

Not sure Firmware can fix that so I'm on the fence on sending it back to try another one.
 
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interesting... I may unbox it and see if I can get the sound. How long was you playing for before the sound appeared??
 
It's loud. I can clearly hear it when playing through the TV speakers at a normal volume level.

Ever had a hard drive start to fail or a fan on your PC with a bad bearing.....that's how loud it is. As I said earlier, my PWTS is silent in comparison.
 
That's indeed the normal sound of a 40mm fan running at its top speed.
I've grown up with PC's and went into the IT business for a while. So I really know the difference. The fan is functioning as it should and is not out of balance or has bad bearings. Which would cause a vibration noise.

The sound you hear in this case is the sound any fan of that size makes when it runs at or more then 2500rpm roughly.

Like I said earlier, it's probably a typo in de code of the firmware that influences either the heat sensor read-out of the motor, or that drives/adjusts the fan speed.

It will be easily resolved in a firmware update, don't worry about it.
 
The thing is though.....none of the fans are spinning. I used my mechanics stethoscope and the noise is definitely coming from the FFB motor.

Anyways I'm going to hold off and be patient on it because in my experience Fanatec has been quite good at fixing issues like this.

I just checked Thomas' blog and he responded to the noise issue today after numerous other users have posted complaints:

"We are working on a firmware patch for this noise issue. It is identified and it can be solved."
 
thehawk05
I opened it up.....it's not the fan. The noise is coming from the FFB motor.

Not sure Firmware can fix that so I'm on the fence on sending it back to try another one.
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I can confirm that this is a firmware issue. I just received a version which should solve the issue. If you send me your email by PM, I will send it to you so you can verify it.
 
Fanatec...
I can confirm that this is a firmware issue. I just received a version which should solve the issue. If you send me your email by PM, I will send it to you so you can verify it.
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NICE to hear although I wouldn't have been so bothered unless it was hidiously Loud
 
Fanatec...
I can confirm that this is a firmware issue. I just received a version which should solve the issue. If you send me your email by PM, I will send it to you so you can verify it.
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PM sent. Thanks a bunch!!!
 
I just did a bunch of laps in a Zonda R in GT5 on the PS3. First off the above mentioned noise is non- existent on the PS3 so I can confirm this an XBOX issue only.

With that said two things: I'm confident Fanatec will fix the issue for us that have it. Secondly......I'm smitten with this wheel on GT5.......I could feel myself grinning lap after lap in the Zonda R with this wheel.....it's just plain pleasurable to use.

This wheel just makes me salivate even more at the thought of the CSR Elite and what it could be like because oh yes.....I'm preordering the first day to get my mitts on one.

Thank you Thomas and the crew at Fanatec......you've given us a good one in the CSR.
 
Did you already get the new firmware installed? If so did it resolve the issue?
 

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