Annoying Problem On Castle Screen

[Icecreamsheep]

Hi all,

Ok then, up until about 2 weeks ago id not had any problems with DAoC other than the occasional LD. Then my HDD Crashed (Bearings packed in). I oiled the bearings and got the drive working long enough for me to mirror it to the replacement drive.

After doing this windows moaned and god knows what so i formatted and re-installed everything. As far as i can remember im running all the same driver versions, all the hardware is in the same place etc etc.

I managed to connect to DAoC once, then as i tried to enter Coruscating mines my machine hung. I restarted the machine and windows loaded up as normal, but when i tried to fire up daoc i couldnt get past the patcher. 20 mins or so of playing around looking at other sites and it suddenly kicked through and asked me for my password. That it accepted and fired up the castle screen (burning camelot isnt it?). It did all the connecting to stuff then nothing. It just sits at the point where it would normally fire up the loading screen.

So I did a complete file check, no problems, never even replaced one file.

So I re-installed. Downloaded all 44.4Mb of patches on a 56K modem and tried again, still no joy, as soon as its supposed to show the loading screen it just sits there with the intro music playing.

Ive been playing around with driver versions for my GF2 card and so far no changes, still does it. Ive changed the SB!Live drivers, again no change.

My complete hardware setup is :

AMD T'Bird 1300 @ 1300 Air Cooled.
512Mb PC133 SDRAM. 2 * 256Mb Sticks.
80Gb IBM GXP75 HDD.
Creative DVD Drive + Decoder card.
HP CD-Writer - I think its the 9700i model.
Hercules GeForce 2 GTS 64Mb.
SB!Live Platinum 5.1
435W PSU. All voltage rails are stable and with +- 0.2v of the target voltages.
Cooler master extreeme case - Shoves about 600 CFM of air through it, so cooling really isnt a problem .
10/100 Network card.

Anyhow, ive left the machine sitting there for over an hour and it didnt move on, it just sat there merrily playing the music and doing sod all else.

Ive tried running with the Detonator drivers 23.11, 30.something and 40.71 / 40.72 and none of them make a difference (Other than GTA3 stops working with some versions).

Ive not got a firewall running so thats not the problem. Also i started having this problem before updating to 1.52, updating to 1.52 hasnt made a blind bit of difference to my problem.

If anyone has any ideas id really appreciate them.

Sheepy

 

[ChillyDawg]

If you find one of my old posts(cba to point at it) i had the(have) the exact same problem, except i know what it is....kind of. Me and a cuppl eof others who had it kinda figured that it was Demon, is your ISP demon? and do you use ISDN?


Dawg

 

[Icecreamsheep]

Damn,

My ISP is demon yes, but im on 56K modem.

Wonder what demon suddenly changed to give us this problem .

Oh well, ill have to phone up demon and complain on monday.

If possible could anyone post here what ports it uses and ill try to find out if they are blocking one for some reason.

If not it looks like ill have to find another ISP that will allow me on evenings and weekends without the phone bill!.

Sheepy

 

[clearbrook]

From rightnow:

To play with a router/firewall/proxy, you have to :

In TCP :
Open the IP class : 193.252.123.xxx
Open the ports : 1280, 10500, 10501, 10502, 10503, 10504, 10622, 10623, 10624.

In UDP :
All of the ports UDP must be opened.

 

[danskmacabre]

Doesn't what OS you're using..
So, anyway.

I use Win2k and I have a GF4..
I had some problems once like you have had.
It was related to my video drivers.

The 40.71 drivers worked for me.
But as of today, there are 40.72 drivers...try them.
Here's a link:
http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=winxp-2k_40.72

 

[Icecreamsheep]

Sorry - didnt realise id missed the OS - Im using Win98 SE.

As for graphics drivers ive tried using 40.72, 40.71, 30.something, 23.11, 21.83 and 12.something. Alll of them had the problem.

Ive also tried various drivers for my sound card, removing the network card and other things.

Im now waiting for a reply from Demon to see if for some reason they are blocking one of the ports. If they are then ill posr and let ppl know how to get them opened again. If not then its back to the drawing board to try and find whatever else is causing the problem.

Sheepy

 

[Jupitus]

OK guys - this is a Demon internet problem, not your PC, but it IS a very strange one which I have reported to RightNow. It is possible to ping both the updater as well as the server through Demon but it will not connect to the server properly after the updater (usually)...

I have noticed that the problem has come and gone a bit, but I have spent a fortune on calls this past weekend because I have had to use Freeserve as a backup.

Sucks eh?

Anyway - report this to RightNow as a connection problem, and tell them you use Demon internet... also report the problem to demon internet although their support is so crap these days you might as well try to kill Azal without getting a PA in first....

 

[Icecreamsheep]

Ok, reported to rightnow and to demon. Wonder which will reply first!.

Just seams odd to me that it only started happening just before the latest patch (and just after demon had done some reconfiguring on its core routers i believe).

Wouldnt suprise me if they have decided to block one of the ports due to sudden increased activity on it and they think its a virus .

Oh well, im going to go and get stoned / drunk until one of these replies to me with a working solution.

Either that or ive got to find a nice ISP that will allow me to connect for free!.

Sheepy.

 

[Icecreamsheep]

Well, after a lot of cursing and swearing I am now able to connect.

Problem is im not too sure what actually solved it .

First off Demon were having massive problems with packet loss and routing. These issues were resolved last night for the majority of their customers i believe.

Second off, Windows on my home machine had managed to somehow screw up its TCP/IP drivers and it was sending out dodgy packets. A complete re-install of windows later and it now appears to be working.

Well, this morning at 1am i finally connected to DAoC again for the first time in almost 2 weeks. Now all ive got to do is get used to the weird icons and get all my quick bars sorted out again.

Incase anyone is having problems i also discovered a little thing with Hercules GF2 cards. if i stick the Nvidia 23.11 drivers straight on after a re-install then most of my games refuse to work. However if I install the Hercules ones from off the CD (Based on version 12.xx of the detonators i think), then upgrade them to 23.11 none of my games complain. Dunno if this will help anyone else with problems, but thought id post it here.

Sheepy