Thread: Problems with BF2 AND PR

I'm not sure how to describe these problems that I have been having today. I've been having problems all the time but nothing as severe as this. Who knows, maybe they are related.

First problem, When I first found TTP, I added to my favorites. I have never added anything else to my favorites but there are like 20 servers listed in my favorites. I've tried removing them but others always replace it. okay, I'll go with that. many times I would go into my favorites list and TTP wouldn't be there, ok, I'll go with that too. I would just simply type the word "texas" and hit enter and TTP would be one of the servers that popped up, that's how I enter the game and that's how I've always entered the game.

A few months ago, I was having video card over heating issues, I had made a long post in one of the threads. When I downloaded a piece of software that allows me to crank up the fan speed, it would do the trick. I would have graphical anomalies so I would alt-tab and crank her up and alt-tab back in and the anomalies would be gone. That seem to do the trick.

Then I moved to Dallas. The first day I played bf2 while in dallas on my computer seemed weird. I just turned on my computer and within minutes, I had graphical anomalies. Okay, I simply did what I always did, crank up the fan. It seemed to solve the issue. Then out of nowhere, the game completely shuts down in the middle of the round. I was like, what the hell, why did it do that. I simply restarted the game, reentered the server and continued playing. Periodically it would do it here and there. Sometimes not only would the game shut down, my entire computer would restart itself. I wonder if these issues are related.

So anyways, I get home today with much anticipation to play some PR. I start the computer and I start the game. I get to the server selection screen and type in the word "texas"....uhhh no TTP today? TTP BF2 nor PR was listed for some reason. I assumed they were down and tried to join another server. I noticed all of my pings with all of the servers were zero. I've been told before that that is a bad thing. Only problem is that all the servers pings were zero. I went ahead and joined a PR server. It finished loading and it got to the squad selection screen. It froze for a second and then I got kicked and said "handshaking failure." I've gotten that message before and was told to update my PB.

I downloaded the files from the two links and used them both. I'm not sure If i'm doing it right but I think that my PB is updated. After I played with that for a few mintues, I tried to reenter the server. it kept giving me the same message. while going back and forth playing with those programs and trying to enter the PR server, I clicked on the favorites tab and saw TTP both BF2 and PR listed there. I was like, "COOL" I can get into TTP now. I tried the PR server. It loaded fine and I was in, I was walking on the carrier, I requested a pilot kit and started flying a chopper. Then, it completely shuts down in the middle of flying. PISSED me OFF. I reloaded and got in again and it did it again but even faster. I growled and decided to just get in the normal BF2 server. It loaded fine and I joined a squad fine. I jumped in an apc and headed into the bay. Then the screen froze for about 30 seconds. Then it un froze and I was continuing on and I was trying to talk to the other guys to find out if they are experiencing lag. They never answered. When I died and respawned. I started having really WEIRD graphical anomalies, buildings were black and I could see snow flakes in the air and the water was crystal like neon blue, hard to describe. I died because of the black buildings and the enemies blended in with the black building. I exited the server and joined another server and played for 30 problems. After I got tired of it, I went to look at the TTP server and saw that my pings for the TTP servers were jumping around like crazy like in between 200 to 25000.

That's when it occured to me that the issue might have to do with the hurricane. As you can see above, the list of different problems vary and may be related or unrelated, I'm not sure.

Any thoughts?

P00P

The technical guys in the Hardware section may have some helpful insights.

Few questions for you:

Do you have a post where you have listed the detailed specs of your PC. I.E.> motherboard & specs, video card & specs, size of power supply & specs, type of memory & specs, & operating system.

Once you get me that information I'll attempt to do some diagnosing of possible issues. Click my link for X-Fire and add me, I'll try to help you resolve it.

For some reason, whenever I think about posting in the PC and Hardware forum, I think of only hardware issues. Feel free to move this post over to that area.

Anyhow, I have posted my specs before but it's no problem doing it again because my computer isn't a mutt, its a HP Pavillion a1640n

The specs can be found here:
http://www1.dealtime.com/xPF-Hewlett...40n-Desktop-PC

The only change that I have made is that when I bought it brand new, I went ahead and upgraded the video card to a nVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT OC PCI EXPRESS card with 256 MB GDDR3
The manufacturer of the vid card I presume is BFG Tech.
Also, since the video card was upgraded, the power supply had to be upgraded, I don't know the size.

The operating system is windows XP

The other change I made to the stock version of the computer is that I installed an extra fan that sucks air from the outside and blows it on the vid card.

I'll look for some other posts that I've made regarding my computer.

P00P

This is from way back when I was having alot of graphical anomalies. Sometimes I think that the life of my video card just ended a little early.

http://www.texasteamplayers.com/index.php?topic=35046.0

Originally Posted by jmw_man

For some reason, whenever I think about posting in the PC and Hardware forum, I think of only hardware issues. Feel free to move this post over to that area.

Anyhow, I have posted my specs before but it's no problem doing it again because my computer isn't a mutt, its a HP Pavillion a1640n

The specs can be found here:
http://www1.dealtime.com/xPF-Hewlett...40n-Desktop-PC

The only change that I have made is that when I bought it brand new, I went ahead and upgraded the video card to a nVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT OC PCI EXPRESS card with 256 MB GDDR3
The manufacturer of the vid card I presume is BFG Tech.
Also, since the video card was upgraded, the power supply had to be upgraded, I don't know the size.

The operating system is windows XP

The other change I made to the stock version of the computer is that I installed an extra fan that sucks air from the outside and blows it on the vid card.

I'll look for some other posts that I've made regarding my computer.

P00P

Based off of these upgrades; if you did not change out the Factory Power Supply, then you could be underpowering your system. Every fan takes so much power, every component that you hook to USB consumes so much power, add in to that the fact that you upgraded the video card to one that consumes more power than your factory one. I would take a real good look at the Power Rating on the side of the factory Power Supply. If it is anything less than about 550 Watts or 600 Watts; then I'd start by replacing it to see how things go.

Most PC users do not understand how much a PC consumes power. The more external USB devices you hook up draw more power. As do the extra fans. The Hard Disk Drives consume power. Multiple CD/DVD devices consume power as well. The real power hog is the upgraded video card which consumes a lot more power. Most factory built PC's don't have a big enough power supply to support that much juice consumption.

Motherboards require so much power to be supplied, as do CPU's. If the wattage drops below a certain point it can not only under power devices {which can damage components}, it can adversely affect the Video Card as well as the CPU. Sometimes those devices react in ways that are unanticipated and can cause weird situations; such as lock ups, freezes, and random reboots.

Other things that can cause video anomalies are too much or too little thermal heat sink compound. Which can cause a chipset such as the video chipset to overheat.

Any or all of these things can attribute to the random issues you are experiencing. I honestly believe your first and foremost issue would be the Power Supply not being large enough.

As mentioned above, my power supply was upgraded, when I bought the pc and video card, to support the video card. The power supply was upgraded to a:

DYNEX
FAN CONTROLLED ATX12V POWER SUPPLY
MODEL #: DX-PS400W2

I assumed that BEST BUY knew what they were doing and let them choose the power supply. I've never known what is recommended as far as power supplies go. The thing that I think is super crazy is that I just opened the case to check what the output wattage is and it read 400W. WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 400W!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, you got to be F****** KIDDING ME. THAT IS WAY BELOW 550 OR 600 it seems.

So let me ask you something, if best buy upgraded my powersupply for my new video card, does that mean that my old power supply was a 350 watt power supply??

Originally Posted by jmw_man

So let me ask you something, if best buy upgraded my powersupply for my new video card, does that mean that my old power supply was a 350 watt power supply??

More than likely.

***COMMANDER*** smoked a nice 512MB 1650 ATI because it was underpowered.


Here's what I have noticed with my Battery BackUP that keeps track of wattage consumption. Most times things are fine, but I used to have an issue with the thing beeping at me like crazy when I fired up BF2 to play. Once I got to researching it, the system required more power to game than to just idle or do other things that didn't tax the CPU, Video, & Sound like gaming does. Had I been running a lower rated power supply I would have probably risked damaging components.

If you go on the web and look at some of the top Hardware sites they give you a real good breakdown of how things that are affected by having too little of a power supply. Most especially in a gaming rig.

Ok, next step, there's a Fry's electronics down the road. Can I just walk in and buy what I need and walk out. Is it simple to remove and replace? Anybody have any experience with this?