End of my tether

[whisky]

Hi All,
After playing online links since day 1, I am now close to throwing in the towel. I have just had the worst experience ever! I am running win 7 pro 64 bit and know there are some issues with the NVidia card, but what has just happened must be the last straw. I was playing the 'fun' par 'Stay Dry' comp. I had FIVE holes in one for the first time ever and not even at the 18th, some way off! I didn't notice my damned internet crash (Thanks iinet) but shortly after my sys crashed....got a resume (but seems it cost me a stroke or two) but didn't help, as shortly after (and another hole in one, now totalling 6!) it crashed again. This time disqualified! Requalified, given ONE STROKE penalty for my pains. Played again (score held that the was old 20 under) So replayed and not ONE hole in one, and finished 17 under and probably well out of the running. Yes, I'm furious and frustrated. Sys regularly crashed but seems more so when I am doing well, this time never had I done so well. I know no one can help, but have to vent, and seriously consider whether it is worth continuing. Probably only solution is to buy another laptop with an ATI card but no, I have 4 in the house and am not buying another. One of the older ones is fine but so slow as now to be virtually unusable on HD courses. If you check my score you will see I started at 20 under and remember, I was quite some way off 18th hole. So what to do......my finger is poised on the Delete button.....

[MimicPS]

Hi Eddie,

Sounds really frustrating especially when you had a round of legend going.

Can I ask, when you say that you had a system crash, is it simply Links closing with an error, or is it the whole OS which crashes?

The first may possibly be remedied by dropping your graphic detail down to the lowest possible setting (it only really affects the depth of detail, for example in long grasses and other textures in the far distance) and setting the game to not use custom skies, which can occasionally cause problems. It would also be advisable to reduce the sounds to just ball striking, taking out environmental sounds. Also, if connecting to the LSPN server between holes for live leaderboards, consider changing to only connect at the end of a round, although not having the score report to the server shouldn't lead to anything other than that element not functioning.

If, however, it is a system crash as in a belly-up start from the boot sequence, you may have problems with overheating. You can get the air-in-a-can and take the back panel off and give it a blow through (youtube provides good guides as to where to concentrate your attentions) or if you have a compressor, use that but on the lowest possible setting so as not to dislodge anything fragile. For other system problems, a freeware monitor which produces some sort of crash report and which would give you a clue may be the best way to identify particular problems.

As far as losing internet connection, that is somewhat out of your hands, and all the more so if you are in any sort of remote location. If you don't have a strong wifi signal in the house then you can get 'repeaters' which pick up the signal from your base station and boost it to increase your range through two storeys of a building or over a wider floor area. You may also want to consider using Powerline plugs which allow you to use your electricity ring-main as a home network. With those, you plug one Powerline plug close by your router and run a wired network connection to it, and have the other located where you play and run a cable out from there.

[whisky]

Hi Mike, thanks for the mail. When I say crash, Links itself crashes, often with a stack overflow error, not the os. My setup is quite modest as I have sound turned off, I do have random sky and have experimented with various graphic settings. I may have to change connect to server only at end of round but it does throw me as to what I need, I do like to keep current update but having said that, I know that on my laptop links is unstable when the blasted system throws up any activity which overrides Links and sometimes does cause probs. Win 7 and Sony are part to blame for this. Even an email coming in will cause links to play up if I don't exit outlook! Compared with my old xp sys win 7 is a nightmare. Though I used to get the odd error on XP nothing like Win 7. Sadly, Sony's Win 7 laptops won't run XP...wish they would. I could have reverted to the 32bit sys but I do a lot of photo/video editing and need the extra grunt and memory. Also when my ISP drops out (no, not isolated country but suburbia!) seems Links cannot pickup when re-connected and either hangs or I can cancel and continue but score is not saved so no point. I am forced to exit and generally end up taking a penalty. Sometimes a resume game works, but often not...certainly not this time. Cable access not convenient as I use the laptop in various locations. I suspect that the machine does have probs and am thinking of picking up a cheap one with ATI graphics at auction but they mostly have nidia or intel chip graphics which are much slower. Yes, I am frustrated. I did put in SDD to speed the machine up which it did hugely. Might consider getting a smaller SSD and configuring it only for Links! But that would probably mean getting another copy of windows so I could have an absolutely clean install and use 32bit win. Anyway, will have a think. What does the Links community use for their mobile play?

Eddie

[gibby]

Seeing its a laptop, overheating would be my 1st guess to the system shutdown. So has Mike suggested can of air, but I would maybe spend $20 or so on a cooling pad with multiple fans, only after you make sure laptop is clean and its fan is ok and laptop checks out as ok.
As for your connection being dropped could be a few things, As Mike said WiFi. But playing online your service provider could be timing out your connection from the game itself. One of the 1st signs of lost connection will be slowing down between holes (rendering)when updating the leaderboard during play, the game will try to reconnect during play and you would see leaderboard catch up. Playing off-line would help in your connection issue, you just wouldn't see leaderboard and then the game will update when you complete the 18th. But again sounds like multiple problems, so fixing 1 at a time will tell more.
Checking laptop is running ok, playing off-line for a few rounds/games will at least point you towards problems your having.
Also, playing multiple rounds in a row can cause problems for some of us without a restart, then taking breaks between holes can affect connection if the game sits idle. Everyone's setup is a little different so all this may or may not work.

edit, seeing your new post as I was posting
Turn off background programs anything starting up while playing is a concern.
And if your playing more than 2 rounds at a time I would do a restart, I had problems b-4 and have gotten use to only playing 2 at a time. I do get 3 in sometimes b-4 restart but I don't push it if need be.
Play off-line if your connection continues to drop and not reconnect, the game server could pick it up that you have quit after a period of time being disconnected.
And remember Official events give 1 free resume (after crashing) then afterwards the penalty kicks in for each one after.
League & Arcade play the rules are made by the League Director and the person making arcade event so they could be completely different rules.

[whisky]

Seeing its a laptop, overheating would be my 1st guess to the system shutdown. So has Mike suggested can of air, but I would maybe spend $20 or so on a cooling pad with multiple fans, only after you make sure laptop is clean and its fan is ok and laptop checks out as ok.
As for your connection being dropped could be a few things, As Mike said WiFi. But playing online your service provider could be timing out your connection from the game itself. One of the 1st signs of lost connection will be slowing down between holes (rendering)when updating the leaderboard during play, the game will try to reconnect during play and you would see leaderboard catch up. Playing off-line would help in your connection issue, you just wouldn't see leaderboard and then the game will update when you complete the 18th. But again sounds like multiple problems, so fixing 1 at a time will tell more.
Checking laptop is running ok, playing off-line for a few rounds/games will at least point you towards problems your having.
Also, playing multiple rounds in a row can cause problems for some of us without a restart, then taking breaks between holes can affect connection if the game sits idle. Everyone's setup is a little different so all this may or may not work.

edit, seeing your new post as I was posting
Turn off background programs anything starting up while playing is a concern.
And if your playing more than 2 rounds at a time I would do a restart, I had problems b-4 and have gotten use to only playing 2 at a time. I do get 3 in sometimes b-4 restart but I don't push it if need be.
Play off-line if your connection continues to drop and not reconnect, the game server could pick it up that you have quit after a period of time being disconnected.
And remember Official events give 1 free resume (after crashing) then afterwards the penalty kicks in for each one after.
League & Arcade play the rules are made by the League Director and the person making arcade event so they could be completely different rules.

Hi Gibby, once again many thanks for the mail. As always you make some sound comments. So I'll address each in turn. Re heating up, yes, laptops are notorious for that and an i7 bad. I do have a base with a fan to put the thing on but really not enough and yes, a good blast of cold air from a can would probably help and yes, I do need to strip down a bit and clean it up. Have done it on various other machines but never on a Sony and suspect it's more difficult than others. Re connection, I have no control over that, I have contacted my ISP to complain about things but nothing has changed, in future will probably use my Tesltra mobile stick for golf as it doesn't use up much download. As for tuning off background things I wish I could! Some, like Sony's rubbish I just cant find and others are spontaneous things like adobe updates that suddenly interfere and also Trend anti virus - though not as bad as Norton (which I hate) use to be as it tried to take over the system. As far as multiple rounds causing crashes, yes, am familiar with it as it also happened on my desktop XP sys. With this latest prob after the crash the prog of course shut down anyway and I rebooted just to be sure, but to no avail. Always does it when I have a great round, rarely when bad! Currently the stability is terrible. As a rule I would exit links after each round to be try to clear things. I suspect much is to do with legacy memory management which Win 7 doesn't like. Anyway, thanks to all for letting me vent and not making fun of me an indeed, offering support. At least I have faith in the community! Will keep posted on how things go
Regards
Eddie

[whisky]

Well, well, well. Guess what? Yep, once again. Played 2 other rounds with no probs, exited in between, then on to a par 3 and....opened with holing first 2 holes in one, then soon after CRASH! Offered me resume on re entering but resume often does not work and did not this time so had to disqualify and take penalty. Getting really, really fed up. As I get holes in one but end up scoring less! Seems mainly happens when I'm doing WELL! During a crap round a crash might be welcome!
Very, very close to calling it a day until I can get a dif machine, which would mean XP (no longer supported) and fast machine.

Eddie

[Bassmaster]

That sucks Eddie! I have had that happen also. Got a "out of this world" great round going only to lose it to a crash.

[gd5150]

Are you watching replays of the shots after you make them? Are you saving them?

[whisky]

That sucks Eddie! I have had that happen also. Got a "out of this world" great round going only to lose it to a crash.

Thanks Rick, I'm always chasing you and now you can see why there is one reason I can't catch you....the other is you are better than me

Eddie

[whisky]

Are you watching replays of the shots after you make them? Are you saving them?

No no replays and haven't even tried to save the shots

Eddie

[CrusherGolfer]

Seeing its a laptop, overheating would be my 1st guess to the system shutdown..

Absolutely! You need a mid-tower PC with a good video card and a decent power supply (450 Watts minimum). I use Hydro H60 to cool my CPU because I like a very quiet computer, my vid-card is an nVidia GTX 760. Whatever you build or buy make sure the computer is built or customized around the video card.

[whisky]

Seeing its a laptop, overheating would be my 1st guess to the system shutdown..

Absolutely! You need a mid-tower PC with a good video card and a decent power supply (450 Watts minimum). I use Hydro H60 to cool my CPU because I like a very quiet computer, my vid-card is an nVidia GTX 760. Whatever you build or buy make sure the computer is built or customized around the video card.

Hey, wer're playing a legacy game decades old it shouldn't need all that grunt! Desktop rarely had probs but now just cannot connect, server error keeps coming up. I use a cooling pad under the laptop but it is not the heat, all that will do is slow down the CPU. Again today, playing a 'fun' par 3, my screen spontaneously exited to the desktop numerous times, happened during a swing and bang! Lost a couple of shots. Then my internet crashed, as usual followed shortly after by my laptop with an overflow stack error. when I finally got running I tried the resume, it loaded, but as almost always, did NOT resume but remained hanging. So had to exit, now of course, I will again be penalised....getting to the stage where there's almost no point in playing!

Eddie

[Mississippi]

Hey, wer're playing a legacy game decades old it shouldn't need all that grunt! Desktop rarely had probs but now just cannot connect, server error keeps coming up. I use a cooling pad under the laptop but it is not the heat, all that will do is slow down the CPU. Again today, playing a 'fun' par 3, my screen spontaneously exited to the desktop numerous times, happened during a swing and bang! Lost a couple of shots. Then my internet crashed, as usual followed shortly after by my laptop with an overflow stack error. when I finally got running I tried the resume, it loaded, but as almost always, did NOT resume but remained hanging. So had to exit, now of course, I will again be penalised....getting to the stage where there's almost no point in playing!

Eddie

A legacy game that has NEVER EVER played well on a laptop with integrated graphics. Server error problems should be taken up with your ISP as thats likely the area of the problem.

[roysie48]

i disagree ive been playing this on a basic dell laptop never had a problem runs sweet i think the problem is deeper routed something in his system interupting the program

[roysie48]

by the way it has intel intergrated graphics