My experience with EA and Punkbuster Tech Support

BPP · 02-11-2004, 05:23 PM

For a little background on my problem, which is still unresolved, click here.

I sent the same e-mail to both EA tech support and Punkbuster tech support detailing my problem in depth. Its kind of funny how they are both quick to defend the patch and say that something is wrong with what I am doing, or my machine.

First off, my responses from EA tech support generally come at least one day after I mail them, and their answers are short and sweet. The first response was them asking me to run dxdiag and save the file and send that to them so they can diagnose the problem further. I send that out to them hoping they are seeing something that can fix my problem. Next response from EA says to call them up and that A hands on approach could be more effective in diagnosing the situation. If you like, call us at the number found in the back of the white install guide that came with the game. I proceed to call them, and after about a fifteen minute conversation (I had to pay long distance of course), the tech tells me that the problem lies within Punkbuster and I have to talk to them. No big deal, so I send out my e-mail to Punkbuster then.

On a side note here, I was trying to play again on a Punkbuster server, and I just happened to alt-tab out to desktop to check my e-mail, when all of a sudden I get the blue screen lockup again. Only this time, there is text with it that says I have an NMI parity check error. Thinking that this is relevant information that could help EA diagnose what the problem is, I send that info out to EA again via e-mail (my trouble ticket was still open, so I could still reply to the last e-mail response). A day later, I get a response from EA again, with only the response that minimizing the game uses up system resources and why am I doing it? I reply that I sometimes have done that in the past with no problems before the 1.6 patch, but now that I am getting blue screen lockups, this time there was text along with it. I thought that the information might be relevant to diagnose what the problem is. Next reply from them is a google link to "What is parity" and an explanation that all of my problems stem from minimizing the game, and to rectify the blue screen lockups, I must exit out of the game properly. I guess they don't read everything that I have written to them in the past (all of our correspondance is still in the same e-mail).

Kind of a frustrating situation from them. I understand that they are probably overworked themselves, but the responses that I have to wait for from them seem completely ridiculous.

Punkbuster on the other hand, replies to me every three days. All that they could say to me was that to try this:
/pb_system
If it says pb system 0 then enter:
/pb-system 1
If it says pb system 1 then enter:
/pb-system 0

Reenter /pb_system to see if the change was done.
Then let me know if it gets better or worst.

Same as what is on the Punkbuster website. I reply to him that the console (~ tilde) key can only be used while in game and that I get an error message saying that changes can't be made while connected to a Punkbuster server. I ask him what should I do, and wait three days for him to reply with simply You should be doing this before you join a server.

For those of you who read my long rant about this, hopefully you can understand how frustrated I am with all of this. I suppose I can just let it go and play on non Punkbuster servers, but it shouldn't be that way. I could just upgrade my computer and hope that it will play fine (1.6 works great for many people), but I shouldn't have to pay more money to upgrade my system, when everything else works just fine. I have made similar posts detailing this problem on other BF1942 forums, and it seems that I am not alone in what I am going through here. It's just that I had hoped for something better from EA and Punkbuster tech support, rather than just getting the runaround for the last two weeks.

Anyways, that's the end of my rant. Thanks to everyone who actually read through all of this!

02-11-2004, 05:23 PM	#1 (permalink)
BPP Sergeant Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 404	My experience with EA and Punkbuster Tech Support For a little background on my problem, which is still unresolved, click here. I sent the same e-mail to both EA tech support and Punkbuster tech support detailing my problem in depth. Its kind of funny how they are both quick to defend the patch and say that something is wrong with what I am doing, or my machine. First off, my responses from EA tech support generally come at least one day after I mail them, and their answers are short and sweet. The first response was them asking me to run dxdiag and save the file and send that to them so they can diagnose the problem further. I send that out to them hoping they are seeing something that can fix my problem. Next response from EA says to call them up and that A hands on approach could be more effective in diagnosing the situation. If you like, call us at the number found in the back of the white install guide that came with the game. I proceed to call them, and after about a fifteen minute conversation (I had to pay long distance of course), the tech tells me that the problem lies within Punkbuster and I have to talk to them. No big deal, so I send out my e-mail to Punkbuster then. On a side note here, I was trying to play again on a Punkbuster server, and I just happened to alt-tab out to desktop to check my e-mail, when all of a sudden I get the blue screen lockup again. Only this time, there is text with it that says I have an NMI parity check error. Thinking that this is relevant information that could help EA diagnose what the problem is, I send that info out to EA again via e-mail (my trouble ticket was still open, so I could still reply to the last e-mail response). A day later, I get a response from EA again, with only the response that minimizing the game uses up system resources and why am I doing it? I reply that I sometimes have done that in the past with no problems before the 1.6 patch, but now that I am getting blue screen lockups, this time there was text along with it. I thought that the information might be relevant to diagnose what the problem is. Next reply from them is a google link to "What is parity" and an explanation that all of my problems stem from minimizing the game, and to rectify the blue screen lockups, I must exit out of the game properly. I guess they don't read everything that I have written to them in the past (all of our correspondance is still in the same e-mail). Kind of a frustrating situation from them. I understand that they are probably overworked themselves, but the responses that I have to wait for from them seem completely ridiculous. Punkbuster on the other hand, replies to me every three days. All that they could say to me was that to try this: /pb_system If it says pb system 0 then enter: /pb-system 1 If it says pb system 1 then enter: /pb-system 0 Reenter /pb_system to see if the change was done. Then let me know if it gets better or worst. Same as what is on the Punkbuster website. I reply to him that the console (~ tilde) key can only be used while in game and that I get an error message saying that changes can't be made while connected to a Punkbuster server. I ask him what should I do, and wait three days for him to reply with simply You should be doing this before you join a server. For those of you who read my long rant about this, hopefully you can understand how frustrated I am with all of this. I suppose I can just let it go and play on non Punkbuster servers, but it shouldn't be that way. I could just upgrade my computer and hope that it will play fine (1.6 works great for many people), but I shouldn't have to pay more money to upgrade my system, when everything else works just fine. I have made similar posts detailing this problem on other BF1942 forums, and it seems that I am not alone in what I am going through here. It's just that I had hoped for something better from EA and Punkbuster tech support, rather than just getting the runaround for the last two weeks. Anyways, that's the end of my rant. Thanks to everyone who actually read through all of this!