Extreme slowdown when installing D3

[Top Gun]

I was wondering if anyone has had the same problem I experience when installing D3. I have a 3GHZ P4 with hyper-threading enabled and 512 megs of RAM running XP Pro. When I install D3, the machine seems to go into ultra-slow, ten-year-old PC mode . The CD drive will rev up for a few seconds, stop, rev up again, stop, ad nauseam. Meanwhile, the installation increases by one percent every fifteen seconds or so. Needless to say, it's incredibly annoying. My family's PC, which is running XP Home and has a 1.3 GHZ P4 with 384 megs of RAM, has no trouble installing; it'll jump up about one percent per second. I haven't had any slowdowns when installing any other games, including FS2, which is twice as big of an installation as D3. Has anyone else experienced this problem? I was thinking that it might be the hyper-threading interfering with something; would you recommend me turning it off temporarily and trying again? Note that, once D3 is installed, it runs smoothly without any problems.

[Mobius]

You only install it once though right?

Maybe you had a virus scan running in the background or something. That'd do it.

[BAAL]

Something as simple as a scratched disk can cause that effect.

[Top Gun]

The disk does have a lot of very minor scratches, but the same disk installs fine on the older computer, so it's not that.

Mobius, I do have McAfee running in the background, and that has some type of active virus scanner always running. I'll have to try disabling it.

Edit: Nope, didn't do it. I do know that I'll just have to install it once, so when I do, I'll just let it sit there. However, I don't have my Merc CD with me at school, so I was going to do a temp install for this week and then uninstall/reinstall after I get the disk from home this weekend. Guess I'll just have to wait until then.

[Krom]

Bad cdrom drive.

[Top Gun]

I doubt it Krom; it doesn't have a problem with any other CD or DVD I've tried in it.

[DigiJo]

probably the copy protection driver, some d3 disks had safedisk v1.something on it, i could imagine a 98 copyprotection driver could cause problems in a todays winxp system.

(i have 2 sets of d3 disks, one has the copyprotection and causes problems, the other newer lowbudget version has no c-protection and installs fine)

[Top Gun]

Maybe DigiJo, but once again (and I'm really sounding like a broken record ), I've reinstalled using these same disks on my family PC that is also running XP, and I never once experienced this problem. I'm just attributing it to random weirdness/something moronic that Dell did.

[MD-2389]

Ok, does it have the same slowdown issues if you copied the entire contents of the CD to your hard drive?

[Top Gun]

I tried it for a few seconds, and it seemed to be running smoothly. The drive wasn't "skipping," and the files were transferring quickly. Weird.

[MD-2389]

Ok, and which version of D3 is this? The original retail, or the dual-jewel version?

[Top Gun]

Original retail. I also have a dual-jewel copy, but I have't tried that on this PC.

[BUBBALOU]

The CD drive will rev up for a few seconds, stop, rev up again, stop, ad nauseam. Meanwhile, the installation increases by one percent every fifteen seconds or so

That is the computer attempting to validate the CRC on incomplete read files by reading the same area over and over again. usally the error window will take 30 minutes before it pops up, and the drive is LOCKED!

This is caused by 1 of 3 things

- A copy was made at a speed faster than 8-12X corrupting data on the disk (CRC failure)

- Scratched disk (logical choice)

- Failing DCROM(least likely)

[Top Gun]

Bubbalou, that's all well and good, but as I've said before, even though this disk has some minor scratches, it works perfectly on my older machine. Because of this, I'd be more inclined to believe that the problem is with this particular PC, not with the disk itself.

[fliptw]

you've tried swapping cd drives right?

[Top Gun]

Swapping CD drives? This PC has only one. And if you mean removing it from one and inserting it into the other, no chance . It's really not that big of a deal; I'll just have to let the thing sit for a while before it installs.

[WarAdvocat]

You only have one CD rom on your computer?

[Top Gun]

I have one DVD+RW drive. Why is this strange? I have no need for four or five, like some of your systems seem to have .

[MD-2389]

Swapping CD drives? This PC has only one. And if you mean removing it from one and inserting it into the other, no chance . It's really not that big of a deal; I'll just have to let the thing sit for a while before it installs.

You could also stick it into the drive on the other machine and just share it with the Dell via the network (if you have one set up).

That, or burn it to an ISO and mount it via Daemon Tools.

[Top Gun]

No, I don't have a network set up. At the present time, the two machines in question are about 50 miles apart . I don't have Daemon Tools, either. I'm just inclined to write the whole thing off due to Dell's shoddy workmanship. When I do bring my Merc CD back, I'll just let the thing sit for half an hour and install. What I should do, if I feel like it, is to bring my dual-jewel copy, which is much less scratched, back to school and see if it does the same thing. I doubt it has anything to do with the scratches, though; my D1 and D2 disks have even more than the D3 one, and both of them still work and install fine.

[Skyalmian]

The CD drive will rev up for a few seconds, stop, rev up again, stop, ad nauseam. Meanwhile, the installation increases by one percent every fifteen seconds or so

I had that happen -- but not just on installations, but for when it came to reading the CDs, period. I'd only be able to listen to part of a music track or browse to two folders on its contents before it would do what you said. It annoyed the hell out of me, so I trashed it and put in a new one. It didn't happen anymore.

[WarAdvocat]

I just always install a burner and a read only. Guess I'm a wierdo who likes to do disk to disk copies or somthing.

[Top Gun]

Well, I'll be damned. My unscratched dual-jewel copy of D3 installed fine. It's still weird that the older copy would install fine on one machine and terribly on another with the same amount of scratches.