My games has been LAG, LAG, CRASH, CRASH since Saturday

I bought the game on the 28th and the game worked fine. Everything was great, smooth seamless transitions between zones, no choppy gameplay, I was in awe! now (Since Saturday) however, load times are sometimes absurd, (If the zones load). And I'm lagging out like crazy, on missions. (Even in underpopulated districts and instances)

--- My system is decent enough P4 3.0 Ghz, Gig of PC3200 RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128Meg.

--- 3.0 Meg Down, 800 k Up, (DSL)

--- All drivers are current, No extra processes are running, and other online apps run smooth as a silk.

I'm at a loss, what can I do? think a reinstall would help or is this something server side? Thanks for any advice.
- Cheers!

Have you tried a game reinstall?

Has any errors come up on the screen when it crashes?

there is an error (havent written the code down yet though) however It basically gives an "error connection msg" soon as the error shows I'll re-post.
any other advice would rock though,
Been considering the reinstall.

Well, give us a peek at the error first and see if we can work something out. Your computer should run it perfect.

Keep your CD's around, not like a reinstall will take more then 2 seconds anyway.

Ok well, I'm no longer crashing, which is great, but my LAG is practically unbearible now team messages take about a minute to atually post in game. and trying to group with people doesnt work out because by the time my skills actually execute, the battle is over (for better or worse)
But its only with this game. Most Half Life 2 Servers showing up are well under 100 ping, as well as Battlefield 1942 well under 100 as well. I have a friend who lives just down the street and he has no problems.
As I asked before would a reinstall actually help or is that just a pipe dream?
I'm at my wits end because this problem is crippling my game experiance as well as that of anyone I group with.
thanks for the help.

Are you using a router or any other firewall? (Windows has a built in one.)

You know, it's probably your ISP's fault. Yes, your ISP. You see, this happened on World of Warcraft with several (and I mean several) people. The ISP's just screwed up, simply, and were having difficulty handling all of the connections to WoW.

It probably IS your provider messing up, not because of all the connections, no, but it could be ANY NUMBER of things wrong.

Phone your ISP, complain to your ISP, etc.

If all else fails, download Adaware, Spybot, and AVG for virus scanning. Scan away (not all at once XD).

Also, is your net connection in general laggy, or is it just GW?

I'm still betting it's your ISP conking out (NOTE - the rest of your surfing and gaming habbits don't necessarily have to be worsened if your ISP is screwing up, it could just be that game, since it uses a specific port, or maybe they're having DNS problems with the game sending data and crap, or maybe they just suck ).

Yeah the error is "ERR=7" I went down the road to a friends with my machine, connected to an Identical Dlink 4 port router (yes port 6112 is open) and Had no problems, no lag, no "ERR=7" he is on the same ISP, and only 1 block away. this is driving me insane plz some advice
- Cheers!

I would try a reinstall. Sounds like file corruption.

If you reinstall the game, make sure to reboot before installing. And install to a differant directory.

I've been having the same problems lately, and its been really peeving me off.

I find my connection just stops while playing GW sometimes and crashes the game. (Took me 8 tries to get to LA over the last couple of days.) There is something that is part of the game which is causing the connection to basically shut off.

Err7 is caused by no net connection.

I have my cable spliced to my tv, and I run MSN / TS client off of my computer, which I've shut off just incase. I find the connection sometimes improves but not a lot.

Keep an eye on your cable modem lights and when you start to lag then crash, which ones are on and flashing?

I'm not sure if between the tv and computer too much bandwidth is getting eaten up by the tv, forcing less to the computer thus causing the net to fail on my computer every so often. With the streaming patch upload it blocks some of the line up as well... But I wouldn't expect a 6MB line to have the tv use the entire line.

I suggest trying the game without a router and see what happens. If it keeps crashing, welcome to my world. I'm going to contact my ISP and ask them why my connection is crashing. If they say it has to do with my bandwidth, then its probley the tv (which shouldn't be happening, but it will be unplugged when I call, heh).

NO

he said he took his PC to a friends house and it worked

that is a connection problem not a corrupted file problem

Well I've tried the Reinstall and no change still, laggy and crashy. This makes me want to cry, on so many levels. I can try it without the Router but that can really only be a temporary fix since I live in an apt with another computer freak. (I have his connection shut off right now, so I know he's not leaching all of the Bandwidth.) anyway thanks for the help guys, I guess i'll just have to move in order to enjoy this game. lol
- Cheers!

BTW If anyone else has any insight I would love to hear it I'm down for trying anything. (My town has free wireless G internet so I'm going to pick up a wireless NIC to see if that remidies my problem. I'll post back if there is any change.)

The other problem could be the router itself or the connection that your ISP is giving you.

I still would like to know if it works plugged directly into your computer or if the connection crashes. Would help my own little issue out greatly if other people lose the entire net connection as well. (As a base for me to work on the problem.)

If it doesn't crash at all, then it has to be the router itself. With the port open, there should be no connection errors at all unless its faulty hardware.

(I'll be disconnecting the cable spliter tonight and running the line straight into my computer just to check if the spliter could be the cause of my problem... *Cries* I'll miss the Simpsons and South Park but meh... GW > TV.)

I have heard from a few friends that my hardware might be going bad. but that wouldnt really explain why I can play BF1942, HL2 and even City of Heroes flawlesly.
I think the Guild Wars Gods hate me and my apartment.