One possible cause of hard lock up

[mouse]

Running CotN on some DVD drives may cause random hard lock ups within the game. When it happened to me I thought possibly is was just that my DVD drive was old and dirty. Cleaning the drive helped but still had random lock ups. But I could play without lock up from my cd-rw which is brand new. So bought a new DVD drive, played the game on it lo and behold the locks were back :D The drive is a Samsung drive which has played all other games without a problem.

[Keith]

What model Samsung, mouse?

As I mentioned in another thread, the Samsung 616T drive did have some SecuROM related problems a year or so ago with one game, "The Thing" and a update was issued to fix that problem. I have a 616T on my current system and haven't had a problem with it so far, not with COTN, or any other program or game.

[Umberto]

Aw, sonuva... I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is my problem... The model of TDK DVD drive I have supposedly has some firmware issues. Unfortunately, I'm out of IDE channels, so I can't put another drive back in.
Umberto

[Keith]

Well, I just wanted to let you know that sometimes it is the hardware's fault. "The Thing" was the only game that had the problem with the 616T. Dell had a patch for the driver that fixed that specific problem with that game.

As I said, I have a 616T on my current computer, I haven't played "The Thing" on this system so I haven't bother with the update from Dell (mine is a Dell computer.)

I run CotN from that very DVD-ROM drive on this system and don't seem to have a problem at all with it. So there is very much a possibility that there is some other issue on your system that is causing these problems, but you can never discount anything until you nail it down.

[Umberto]

Well, that's not what's causing my problems. Popped in a CD-RW, same problem. I guess I'm just going to have to hope for another patch or something.
Umberto

[mouse]

Keith the current model is H-352A there are no firmware updates for it. The one I took out was model SD-616. Funny thing it had no problem with installing the game and only random lock ups within the game. Have eliminated all other possible sources of the problem. Since CotN plays perfectly no matter the map or city size on my plextor cd-rw.

Just sharing the information that I discovered by trial and error. If anyone is hoping for a patch to solve a drive related problem it will only come from the drive manufacturer.

[C Franziskus]

Hiya Mouse, :)

I'm a bit 'puzzled', the only time the game accesses the drive on my system is when it first starts. After that I've never observed it to do anything else anymore. How do you deduct 'in game' lock-ups with the kind of drive you use???? Am I missing something?

[mouse]

CF everything else was eliminated and only happens when using the DVD drive :D If you can give me a clue then I could put my old DVD drive back in and return or sell the new drive ;)