VKB-SIM

I've noticed that my VKBs enter a sleep mode, with the blue light not on, and the sticks not functioning in games until I unplug the USB connection. Is there a way around this, or what is happening to cause it?

Try powered USB or plugged directly to motherboard.

Either way, go into the device manager and expand the tree of your hunam interface devices and usb serial bus controllers. Look at them all. Check the power management tabs and make sure those boxes are UN-checked. Otherwise windows might tend to turn off that particular controller for your convenience without notice.

Go into your power plan and make sure that usb selective suspend is disabled for the same reasons.Get to that by: Settings/System/Power and Sleep/Advanced Power/Change plan settings/Change advanced settings.

If you think that will fix it, eventually a windows update will fix it back! So it's a good idea to check these fairly regularly.

If you're playing on a laptop and you're not plugged in, it's probably not a good idea to disable all this power management. In that case set up another power plan for that and switch back and forth depending on if gaming or not.