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Guest Radar
Posted

Mine is in the same condition :/

Guest Moebius
Posted

Well, after a complete OS reload on a new hard drive, I still lock at the end of an online game. Westwood has been little help except to say reinstall game. This of course after refusing to support XP while I waited patiently like Radar.

Weird thing is it's only at the completion of an online game. Single player is fine, and game play online is fine. Only at the Victory message do I hang.

I'd post the diag info, but we all know it's pretty worthless on XP. I'm actually becoming more convinced that Emperor doesn't like my NIC. (Netgear FA311) My brother has a system setup nearly identical to mine (I know as I built it for him) and he has no problems whatsoever.

Is anyone else having problems locking only after online games?

Guest ReinHawk
Posted

Totally same, Moebius. Same network card, same problem.

Posted

Interesting.. Is either one of you able to try another NIC ? As I do not know if it's an onboard NIC, but if so, try updating your chipset drivers.

Keep me updated !

"Doc" Nyar...

Posted

archieb, keep me updated !!

Everyone, I'm in the process of getting fired from work, so I might be busy arranging stuff. Once done, I'm able to startup my own gaming business, which I'm confident it will succeed. Next to that, I'm also moving, so you can imagine I'm quiet busy. So if no reply from me during a few days, you know why.. Also if time permits, my troubleshooting webpage should be updated soon (www.xs4all.nl/~sascho)..

"Doc" Nyar...

Guest ReinHawk
Posted

Nahh... I don't have the money! :(

I've updated the drivers, but the problem persists.

Guest archieb
Posted

Well 'doc' I haven't redone my h/d yet, but i'll get Aroundtoit pretty soon. I'm going to copy my old "C" dr. programs to the big "D" dr. ; then disconnect 'c' from the sys, then load win98se onto 'd'. Then i'll reload Emperor and see if that works. I'll let you know if that resolves the loading problem. Thanks for all your help.

archieb

Posted

Moebius, are you able to try your brothers NIC (if so, do not forget to disable the onboard NIC in the BIOS)?

Another thing that pops up.. The NIC supports 10/100mbit and the default setting is Auto. What you might want to try is to hard code it on 10 or 100mbit and or check the duplex settings (if it's on half duplex, try setting it on full and the other way around)..

"Doc" Nyar...

Posted

Moebius, I understand your frustration.. hence why I started this topic..

I all the time here, I've said enough about Westwood tech support.. And I can tell you, sending an e-mail is a waste of time.. I've tried.. and failed miserably..

"Doc" Nyar...

Guest Radar
Posted

Reinhawk,

Right click on My Computer and click on Properties. Click on the Device Manager, find you NIC and go to its properties. You should be able to tweak the duplex mode from there.

Guest Moebius
Posted

Lo and behold! A replacement nic solves the problem!!!!!

Reinhawk, in the for what it's worth category, you can get a decent nic for around $25 nowadays. Linksys LNE100tx is the model I bought (also what I had put in my bro's system) and it works flawlessly. In my case, XP has native drivers for it, so I had nothing to install, just plugged and tried Emperor and was able to go past a game for the first time.

Now to send another email to Westwood, only not to the support department this time.

I know sending email to them will be a waste of bandwidth, so I'm going to use a few industry connections and take it a bit higher.

I've had to put up with articles blasting tech support lately and blaming it on outsource vendors. I happen to work for such a company, and (back before I moved to IT) had my techs performed at the level of these guys, they would have been fired, or at the very least given a final warning and sent back for recursive training. It's people like this that give my industry a bad name.

Guest Moebius
Posted

Unfortunately, my brother's NIC is about 1200 miles away, but I'm probably going to try a new NIC out. Sadly, Netgear's support expertise, while far superior to Westwood's, is unable to shed any light on the subject.

Acutally, being in the Contact Center industry, and having started as a tech support agent, I find the level of support from Westwood most depressing.

I've had to submit the case four times as they closed previous ones even though I responded within 48 hours. Non of their techs have bothered to research case threads (something which I've fired my people for before) and have suggested the same canned answer each time I restart the case. This is despite the fact that I specifically list the previous case number AND the steps already taken from it.

I thought I was finally getting somewhere this time. After two weeks of "try the help document on Why does my game crash?" and "close all these programs down before running the game." (mind you those extra programs are my firewall which I've tried shutting down before playing, and my audio drivers), I finally get this response.

RESPONSE (WW Sasha Bhowmick) - 03/21/2002 06:26 PM

We have reviewed your issue. Due to the unique nature of your issue, we will need to research your problem further. We have a team continuing to examine your specific problem and expect to have an answer shortly.

So i eagerly await my next reponse, which comes this morning from what I assumed would be a SR. Tech.

Case # 010812-001567 Emporer hangs after online game.

Discussion Thread

---------------------------------------------------------------

RESPONSE (WW Allen Kukshal) - 03/23/2002 01:34 AM

- The following programs were running at the time of your system scan:

smss.exe

csrss.exe

winlogon.exe

services.exe

lsass.exe

svchost.exe

svchost.exe

svchost.exe

svchost.exe

spoolsv.exe

Explorer

devldr32.exe

nvsvc32.exe

svchost.exe

csrss.exe

winlogon.exe

Explorer

Audio Headquarters

qttask.exe

msmsgs.exe

devldr32.exe

zapro.exe

ez.exe

Please make sure you shut all of these down except Explorer and Systray prior to starting the game.

If you are still experiancing crashes, run EASy Info again immediately following a crash, and send it as an attachment in reply to this email. Thanks

Ok, let's analyze this shall we (please note, I'm terribly ****ed about now so I'm in a flame mood)

To shut down everything except Explorer and Systray.... Perhaps if he'd bother nothing that this is running on an NT kernel (ala XP) he'd have a brain to realize that 90% of what's running are system services that cannot even be stopped without stopping the system. Ok, there are a few other things running, my firewall, my audio drivers, and a few things left in startup that I hadn't gotten around to clearing yet.

Then comes the part asking to run Ezinfo immediately following the crash. Ok, which part of system LOCKS do these people have trouble comprehending???

Ok, that's my griping for today. I'm about to write both WW Suport and WW Customer service a long complaint about their level of support, then see if I can find a decent price on a NIC. If that solves it, you better believe they'll be getting more words from me. I suggested in the very first thread (which they refused to support XP then even though I had the same problem on ME) that it looked like a conflict with the NIC, and suggested they lab test such. A suggestion which seems promptly ignored.

Posted

Moebius, happy gaming !! Rein, this means that it's worth to try another NIC !

Moebius, if you're going to write Westwood, I'll be happy to give you some extra input. I've been dealing with them for over a year now and I think I know their way of working. So if you need any help, be sure to let me know. My e-mail address is: respect_30@hotmail.com

"Doc" Nyar...

Posted

Radar, there's a new driver release from Nvidia. I've loaded them too and it has given me a performance increase. I'm 90% sure the problem you're having with the weird screen is due to a driver issue. Try these new drivers from Nvidia (28.32).

Keep me updated !

"Doc" Nyar...

Guest Radar
Posted

Going to try those driver very soon. Hang on for an answer ;-)

Guest Radar
Posted

And the issue remains unsolved.. :/

Guest ReinHawk
Posted

Detonator XP 28.32 increased a little performance for me, and I might get what you got, Moebius, in a few weeks' time. ;)

Guest
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