No mic, CTD, connection lost

[(HUN)Rud3bwoy]

The text below is my old issue, the new one is added in a new post.
I will keep this post untouched in case it contains any valuable information.



Hi!

This will be a bit of a rant too, I'm sorry about that but I'm fed up.

The reason why PR is unenjoyable on my comp:

-Microphone:
I cant get voip to work. Without voip all I can do is fly trans helis or lone wolf as insurgent(but it has no point because I usually get killed 20 times a round with no actual contribution to the team). I tried multiple drivers, earlier versions, different headsets etc, none worked. When I press the push to talk button the little green icon comes up but no one can hear me. When configuring voip, the volume bar does not respond, the PC recognizes my mic but refuses to record any sound(not just PR but skype, msn etc too).

-Connection problems:
Thats one of the major problems. I randomly get connection problem issues, every 10-20 minutes, sometimes(about half the time) it results in crashing to the server menu (Connection to the server was lost). Now this makes even flying trans helis tricky. I just cant reconnect 3-4 times every round. I checked punkbuster, it works okay, tried removing, installing and updating it both manually and automatically(pbsvc + pbsetup). I made several ping probes(tracert) to see if there is a choke, but there were none. I am behind a router but I've had this problem before the router got installed.

-Crash to desktop:
To top my problems I randomly get CTDs.

My PC config is in my profile(it is more than enough to run PR).
My OS: WIN7 x64

Any significant changes before the problems: I already had the connection problems issue while running PR on Vista OS. The microphone issue started when I changed my OS to WIN7x64 from Vista. The CTD issue started 2 weeks ago, but I cannot recall any significant change I did. No new drivers or hardware, no system file changes, I only had a couple applications installed: ChemDraw, Chem3D(chemical structure planning and drawing app), and a couple of games.

What I've tried so far except the above mentioned attempts:
-tried a complete uninstall/reinstall of PR
-tried a complete OS reinstall(with HDD formatting)
-tried to set pr.exe, bf2.exe to run on only one core instead of 4.
-tried to run pr with the "run as administrator" and "win xp compatibility" commands

None of this worked.

If anyone has an idea to solve the problems I'd really appreciate it, otherwise I think I'll give up on PR since this way it's just 100% frustration and 0% fun.
Thanks in advance!

EDIT:
I have changed OS from Vista to WIN7x64 3 months ago. I had connection problems before installing WIN7, CTD started about 2 weeks ago, but the microphone problem must be WIN7 related, because my mic stopped working right after I installed my current OS.
No overclocking attempts were made either to RAM, CPU or GPU.

EDIT2:
About the CTD: I don't know about the error messages, I did not check it out yet(you mean running PR in windowed mode right?). Anyway the CTDs are perfectly random, mostly mid-round no matter what map or server I'm on or in rare cases about 20 seconds after joining a server.

About microphone: communication tab is already set to "do nothing".

System specs:
Operating System : Windows7x64
Motherboard : Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3
Processor : Intel [email protected]
Memory : 4Gb DDR2 RAM @1066Mhz (2x 2Gb sticks)
Video Card : Sapphire Radeon HD4870 Toxic
Sound Card : integrated
Hard Drive : 500GB Hitachi Hard Drive
Optical Drive : Pioneer DVD RW
Power Supply : 550W Chieftec

Edit3:
I am connected to the router through cable.

[Sisko]

Did u install new Windows or try to overclock something?

[Johncro]

Just gonna have a lil counter rant of my own then I'll help.

1) nothing says you need a mic to play tactically?
Sometimes I play without my mic because I've had a bad day. or someone is doing something that could disrupt game play for others... you can still join tact squads just say you dont got a mic. and reply with short answers.. yes no. enemy 150 W etc etc.

2) I get that al lthe time. Issue is for me is a bad router.

3) Can you give us more info on your CTD's error messages. sounds. what you were doing before it CTD'


And your system specs would be awesome to.

Start menu>Run> DXDIAG> enter

[maarit]

im not sure but in win7 you should check this about voip problem...
1. Right click on the speaker icon in the bottom right
2. Select "playback devices"
3. Go to the "Communications" tab
4. Change it to "Do Nothing".
5. Apply and click ok.

[(HUN)Rud3bwoy]

Thanks for the posts, I updated the OP.

[Hitperson]

with the connection issues are you running on wireless or wired.

[Johncro]

I run wired through router.

I still have shitty connection.
if you dont mind what company do you use?

[(HUN)Rud3bwoy]

I use the worst router possible: a D-link Dl-624 wireless router(Im connected to it through cable). Though the router is not the problem since I had connection problems before it got installed.

[(HUN)Rud3bwoy]

Thats it. I got disconnected again while flying a heli. No more PR for me for a while...

[Johncro]

LOL


D-Link is better then Bell....


But uhhh call your ISP and talk to them about your internet..

[(HUN)Rud3bwoy]

Hi!

Sorry I bumped this old thread, but I figured why start a new one?

The issue now is only constant connection loss.

I reformatted my hard drive, put Win7 x64 on it, there were literally nothing on my comp besides the necessary drivers/softwares to run BF2/PR and I get dropped back to the server menu with the "Connection to the server was lost" prompt. There is no "There is a problem with your connection" text in-game, just a 1-2 second screen/audio freeze and the drop to the menu.

I've tried every trick I could find on the internet, I've read most forum topics dating back the past year and I couldn't figure out what the problem is.
It's not a router issue, since I get the same problem while directly connected to the modem itself.
It's not a PB issue, I updated PB both manually and through pbsvc/pbsetup, I've set pnkbstrA/B.exe to automatically restart if stopped in the services menu of the taskbar.
It's not a connection issue because when I play the game in windowed mode and monitor the network activity there are no surge spikes or bandwidth drops.
There are no firewalls in the way of the game whatsoever(I even added BF2.exe to the exclusion list manually, both UDP/TCP).

I've done many more things I read that could help, but none did. I've already given up PR because dropping a connection while flying is much more taxing on both me and the team than an interrupted grenade spam on Karkand, but lately I cant even play BF2 because literally I get dropped every other minute. (I got dropped 8 times in the last 30 minutes on 5 different servers, all PB monitored, ranked etc). Before this I could get through 1-1,5 rounds on average before the connection dropped.

The only thing that's weird and I dont remember if it happened before is that some textures in-game are black-ish and flickering, but I dont think it has anything to do with the connection loss.

Any suggestions?

P.S.: a screenshot of the flickering textures:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7851/kivanafasz.jpg

[Valleyforge3946]

Hi!

Sorry I bumped this old thread, but I figured why start a new one?

The issue now is only constant connection loss.

I reformatted my hard drive, put Win7 x64 on it, there were literally nothing on my comp besides the necessary drivers/softwares to run BF2/PR and I get dropped back to the server menu with the "Connection to the server was lost" prompt. There is no "There is a problem with your connection" text in-game, just a 1-2 second screen/audio freeze and the drop to the menu.

I've tried every trick I could find on the internet, I've read most forum topics dating back the past year and I couldn't figure out what the problem is.
It's not a router issue, since I get the same problem while directly connected to the modem itself.
It's not a PB issue, I updated PB both manually and through pbsvc/pbsetup, I've set pnkbstrA/B.exe to automatically restart if stopped in the services menu of the taskbar.
It's not a connection issue because when I play the game in windowed mode and monitor the network activity there are no surge spikes or bandwidth drops.
There are no firewalls in the way of the game whatsoever(I even added BF2.exe to the exclusion list manually, both UDP/TCP).

I've done many more things I read that could help, but none did. I've already given up PR because dropping a connection while flying is much more taxing on both me and the team than an interrupted grenade spam on Karkand, but lately I cant even play BF2 because literally I get dropped every other minute. (I got dropped 8 times in the last 30 minutes on 5 different servers, all PB monitored, ranked etc). Before this I could get through 1-1,5 rounds on average before the connection dropped.

The only thing that's weird and I dont remember if it happened before is that some textures in-game are black-ish and flickering, but I dont think it has anything to do with the connection loss.

Any suggestions?

P.S.: a screenshot of the flickering textures:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7851/kivanafasz.jpg

You are not alone in your pain. I don't have this issue but literally i knowwhat yourgoing through BF2 wise. The ITsupport guy (me) admits he has more BF2 probs than you and luckily for you. Knows the problem and shall tell you (your not going to like it) while i am reinstalling Battlefield 2 for the 17th time seeing as somehow the .973 patch somehow corrupted my install.

As for the spots.. ATI card.. Enable catalyst A.Iin CCC panel and downgrade to 11.3 If nvidia.. try running the game as admin with vsync and then without it. Seems to fix it. Any who.... seeing as you have gone through so much effort and me doing a good 15 minutes of research. The problem is not you. It is your ISP. You see, your connection might be jittery as blizzard. And you need to maintain some kind of connection to the server to stay on it. BC2 and 43 are horrible at this requiring a direct link with A background EA service that kicks you if you lose connection or won't even let you login. But that's another topic. Long Story Shorter, Your internet sucks. Contact your ISP. day.

[(HUN)Rud3bwoy]

Thank you for your answer, though you were right, I dont like the sound of that answer
I will call my ISP next week but I doubt if they can do anything about it. Is it still possible that it's the ISP? I mean I did 30 minute pings of the servers I was on with the "-t" option in cmd.exe and the results were 0% packet loss and an average of 50ms response time.

[Bufl4x]

The built in ping command uses TCP packages, but BF2 uses UDP as far as i know. Get a little program called pingplotter and try testing with UDP.

Do you get connection problems on servers that doesn't use PB? If not set the pb update interval to a lower rate which will result in more data being sent less frequently, or to a higher rate which will result in less data being sent more frequently.
I can't remember the exact command, it's something like pb_sleep. Just google that and you should be able to find it.

[(HUN)Rud3bwoy]

I'd like to add an update to the problem if anyone is interested. Nothing big.

I called my ISP, they told me to make a few ping logs of national and foreign sites with the "-tracert" command (the longer I run them the better), and send it to them through their website for analysis. They said the problem may be that for certain connections the packages are trying to get through a faulty gate, the tracert runs may reveal those gates so ISP can divert the packages to another gate.

Sounds odd, but there is nothing I can do about it.
If there is anything else, I will update this thread.