Rare unable to connect problem. Solved!!!

I just got my new PC a few days ago and the ONLY thing that didn't run absolutely flawlessly was AOM when I tried to connect to anyone through gameranger. Since this is one of my most favorite activities I was going crazy trying to figure it out. I even went so far as to re-image the PC. Still, it would not work.

The symptom I was having was as follows: I could connect to gameranger fine. I could connect to a friend using the the direct connect feature. But when I launched the game as the host, anyone I was trying to play with would remain at the LAN/Direct IP screen and after 15 seconds they would time out. I tried having them host and then it would be me sitting at that screen for 15 seconds and timing out. I updated every driver and examined every setting in on my modem/router. No Luck. I literally worked on this single problem from 7 pm until 4 am. Still no luck. It worked fine on my old PC so what's the deal? I even hooked up the old PC again just to test it. Very annoying.

The ONLY thing I could think of that might cause a connection issue at this point was the NIC. Sure enough, my motherboard has a built in Bigfoot Killer 2100 NIC and that was the issue. I can't tell you why it was happening, only that when I went and bought a USB NIC and plugged it in, perfection. The crazy thing was, both AOM and Gameranger worked flawlessly by themselves but as soon as they tried to work together, stoppage.

This is probably one of the most frustrating issues I've ever faced with a game so I thought I would try and save anyone else that might be having this issue the grief that I had. I'm a technical lead for a gigantic pharmaceutical company so this turned into a personal challenge for me. Good luck all!

Wargod wrote:

I just got my new PC a few days ago and the ONLY thing that didn't run absolutely flawlessly was AOM when I tried to connect to anyone through gameranger. Since this is one of my most favorite activities I was going crazy trying to figure it out. I even went so far as to re-image the PC. Still, it would not work.

The symptom I was having was as follows: I could connect to gameranger fine. I could connect to a friend using the the direct connect feature. But when I launched the game as the host, anyone I was trying to play with would remain at the LAN/Direct IP screen and after 15 seconds they would time out. I tried having them host and then it would be me sitting at that screen for 15 seconds and timing out. I updated every driver and examined every setting in on my modem/router. No Luck. I literally worked on this single problem from 7 pm until 4 am. Still no luck. It worked fine on my old PC so what's the deal? I even hooked up the old PC again just to test it. Very annoying.

The ONLY thing I could think of that might cause a connection issue at this point was the NIC. Sure enough, my motherboard has a built in Bigfoot Killer 2100 NIC and that was the issue. I can't tell you why it was happening, only that when I went and bought a USB NIC and plugged it in, perfection. The crazy thing was, both AOM and Gameranger worked flawlessly by themselves but as soon as they tried to work together, stoppage.

This is probably one of the most frustrating issues I've ever faced with a game so I thought I would try and save anyone else that might be having this issue the grief that I had. I'm a technical lead for a gigantic pharmaceutical company so this turned into a personal challenge for me. Good luck all!

hmm...just asking as u r new, hav u patched with 1.03v and cracked ???

That's very interesting. I do have to ask though, why on earth did you consider the Bigfoot NIC? Their stuff is 100% snake oil.

It was most certainly patched and cracked. As I said, it worked perfectly as soon as I attached the USB NIC.

As to the snake oil comment... 100% true. The idea that your going to get a perceptible difference in performance with their expensive trash is preposterous. However... The Gygabyte G1 Guerrilla motherboard has it built on. I was looking at gaming performance overall when I selected it and who even thinks about what kind of NIC is built onto the motherboard anyway? Maybe some people do, but I didn't even notice and wouldn't have cared even if I did.

In any case... I had noticed that a couple of other people had had problems with a 15 second timeout so I wanted to make sure I posted here to save anyone else potential grief if they run across this. Very curious to know if anyone else has had this exact problem with a Killer NIC or any other NIC, for that matter.

15s timeout is "usually" just a wrong IP.

When you start the game with GR host room, the software is trying to get your public IP and checks your connections for that.
Maybe your adapter was using an IP in a range that cheated the system (who thought it was your public one...). That's what happens with hamachi or VPN taps.

Just for trying to understand why it failed, could you try to use the Bigfoot crapy NIC and launch the game with gr host room. Then check the IP at the top left corner of aom host window and compare it with your public IP (whatismyip.com). Then tell me if they are equal.

Ty

They are the same. I even went into my modem (has a built in router) and checked it there. Put this PC on the DMZ... Nothing. The IP address listed in game, on the router and at any website that tests speed or open ports is the same with the Killer NIC.

Ok, that is a really weird and rare problem then... congratulations for having solved it^^