ICQ Phone..Anybody else using it? - Page 3

rah · May 3, 2001, 08:50

I went to the icq web site and did a little searching. Apparently this problem is pretty wide spread based on the amount of posts that I saw that said, "I could hear them, but they couldn't hear me" Unfortunately there were no responses posted to those complaints. There boards are a little jumbled though. (unlike here) So I would suggest searching them further and maybe you'll get lucky. Or post a specific title in the section for their experts. (would have done that but I'm at work and don't know my icq number)

Rich

Ming · May 3, 2001, 09:03

Thanks for the info...
My wife switched me over from DSL to a cable modem yesterday (you were right, the speed difference is obvious)
While she was at it... she tried to solve the problem. She checked all my settings, connections... you name it, and she looked at it.
Her conclusion... check with the ICQ experts

War4ever · May 3, 2001, 09:56

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by Ming on 05-03-2001 09:03 AM</font>
Thanks for the info...
My wife switched me over from DSL to a cable modem yesterday (you were right, the speed difference is obvious)

<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

you like cable better ? i heard dsl is better.... i am on cable but have tried dsl and found it quite quick.......

let me know as i am moving in a month and need to decide which is better for me of course

Ming · May 3, 2001, 10:35

DSL vs Cable modem... It depends.
We got DSL because that was the only real choice we had back when we moved in. Unfortunately, we were on the outer limits of DSL service (the closer you are to the central office switch, the higher the speeds)
My wife had to argue with them to even install it. At the time, the best speed they would promise was 144... and that's pretty much what we got.
It was sure better than tradional modem dial up service, but not as fast as we would have liked.
With the cable modem, I'm clocking in at speeds 4x's faster on the slow end, and have already seen it much faster than that.
So it really depends. From what I hear, the speed slows down on a cable modem if everybody in your neighborhood is on at the same time... but I really don't know yet. Rah has always seemed pleased with his cable modem service.

And on a side note, ATT Broadband just announced another rate increase yesterday

Ming · May 4, 2001, 09:11

Rah... as you know, I went to the icq site last night and did find a FAQ on that exact subject when one of the ICQ reps provided me with the location after talking to him on chat... and as you also know, after trying all of their suggestions, it still didn't work. I then went back to chat, and said none of the suggestions work... he didn't bother to respond

After you left, I checked around some more and ended up posting my problem on the tech advice boards... I got MANY, MANY, MANY, responses... but most were along the line of "it's your headphones/speakers"... after explaining that I could hear the normal ICQ sounds, but not ICQ phone, most just said they didn't know what else to do.
My favorite suggestion was from somebody that said ICQ sucked, and I should use the MS version of instant messenger and their phone feature...

I'll continue checking out the ICQ site since it seems like the answer may be buried somewhere in that very disorganized site.
But, I'm still interested if anybody here has any suggestions

War4ever · May 4, 2001, 09:55

perhaps you should go over to the site and become a moderator... then you could organize the threads so this problem could be corrected..... while your at it out workplace could use an organizer to

War4ever · May 8, 2001, 23:22

mIngs icq is really messed up now...... its not just the phone

i keep missing Barano's icq phone calls to......

Rich is yours still working ?

Moker Guy · May 9, 2001, 00:57

alright heres the lowdown on what ive been able to come up with.
first of all whatever you do dont call a tech person for it

thank me now or later i saved you about 3 hrs of worthless bullcrap. second of all when my friend sent me a voice mail with the icq it came out at about 1/3 speed. it is possible that this is coming out even slower over the pc to pc phone call, which would be why it cant be heard beacause the wave length is to distorted. it is obvioulsy a bug in the icq program beacause his microphone worked perfect when he recorded on his cpu. after many long hours we narrowed it down to the microphone device selector on icq. if in all possiblity it could be an incompatible device driver for the microphone, incompatible in that icq can not read the format, or an incompatible format that icq uses for compression. compressing the sound down when its already compressed and opening it up half way wouldnt work. that would explain the slowness of the icq voice mail. to bad we cant all just talk in .wav

if i knew how to program i would try and make a patch for it but i dont have the first clue about how to go about that.

heres an idea though. send your friend the root version of icq2000b that you are using. if yours is working it might work for them too. maybe there is just a corrupt copy of icq circleing around. if that doesnt work i like the idea of scraping icq and using microsofts messenger

even though i hate microsoft

but after all

icq2kb is a beta copy:rollryes:

Mokers 2cent

Moker Guy · May 9, 2001, 01:02

oh a comment on dsl

i just got mine about a month ago and ever since a few days ago ive had nothing but problems. the server around here sucks. they even worked on it last night and it still dropped me twice today.

Moker

(i cant beleive im not prince yet)

rah · May 9, 2001, 08:27

MK, your explanation would make sense except for the fact that I can Hear Ming when I connect to him but he can't hear me. Other people have successfully heard me. So it must be how he is receiving. But please continue to look into it. Maybe I could send Ming the copy I have.

War4, No I haven't tried it since I tested it with ming last Thursday. We had no problem connecting. I'll have to test it with you or Barono to verify.

Rich

markusf · May 9, 2001, 13:51

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by War4ever on 05-03-2001 09:56 AM</font>
you like cable better ? i heard dsl is better.... i am on cable but have tried dsl and found it quite quick.......

let me know as i am moving in a month and need to decide which is better for me of course
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

ADSL is more stable, and it gives you a deadicated connection to your isp. On rogers/shaw your sharing a node and the customer service sucks, and the service is down a lot. At least in vancouver here.

markusf · May 9, 2001, 13:52

ADSL is not DSL,niether is it VSL(25 megs/sec)....

Ming · May 10, 2001, 09:25

I still get a few messages from posts I made in their forums. Most have to do with microphone settings (which I have checked multiple times). Nobody seems to get that people can hear me fine, I just can't hear them, yet my headset works perfectly for hearing the other ICQ noises... And, people who have been able to talk to others (proving the problem isn't on their end) are still having problems with me... sigh...
I've even reloaded the ICQ software a couple of times now to make sure I didn't get a corrupted copy.

I'm not looking forward to calling their tech support, but that's next on the list. I hope it's not a three hour trek to just learn that I should check my microphone settings... ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

War4ever · May 10, 2001, 18:37

Well i had a short chat with Barano last night..... was alot of fun

Let me in on some secrets about the twinz

and the way they like to play

rah · May 11, 2001, 00:17

Yes, I was ammused when I was looking. There were two seperate issues asked.
1. can hear them, they can't hear me.

2. can't hear them, they can hear me.

Which you would think are two different problems, but when you read the soloution, they're identical. I just had to laugh.

Rich

Moker Guy · May 11, 2001, 00:27

well after trying icq and not getting anything ive decided to try out ms messnger. ill keep you posted on how that works.

Moker

War4ever · May 11, 2001, 00:30

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by Moker Guy on 05-11-2001 12:27 AM</font>
well after trying icq and not getting anything ive decided to try out ms messnger. ill keep you posted on how that works.

Moker
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

i use messenger as well.... although i prefer icq... i hardly know anyone on messenger

Moker Guy · May 11, 2001, 01:36

true but getting messenger and trying to find someone was the fun part

i tryed it out with someone and it said they needed an update. they knew they had a half duplex sound card and msn messenger requires a full duplex. so through all logical possiblities

icq needs a full duplex to run as well. but wait, before you go by a new sound card there still is hope. the help section on the ms messenger said that you can use a usb microphone. so either way you will have to buy something but plugging in a microphone is alot better than taking off your case and installing a sound card, depending on the price

so try that out ming and see what happens. get it from best buy so you can take it back

Moker

markusf · May 11, 2001, 01:50

Should work with half duplex as well...

Funny how everyone is so facinated about icq phone. I remember 4 years ago before icq there was a program called powwow that was just like icq and it had all the features icq has NOW and more(including the phone that worked with half duplex cards). Only reason i think it didn't catch on is because it wasn't on the system tray... Anyone else ever used it?

Baron O · May 13, 2001, 16:21

my use of icq phone has been limited. i have experienced the same problems as ming has had. i am not sure what the problems were as i reloaded my soundcard and settings. now i can talk to rah and war4ever. i think the problem may lie in modem settings. as modem must have voice capabilites and they have to be actived. just the ravings of a novice!

Hydey · May 13, 2001, 18:00

I still can't get ICQ phone to work but I have been able to talk to people using netmeeting so I know my equipment works , just not with ICQ.

------------------
Time share holidays are cool

Hydey will be away again soon

Sparrowhawk · May 14, 2001, 02:52

Sparrowhawk offers his 2 cents to the mix...........

I have used each of MSN Messenger voice, Yahoo Messenger Voice and ICQ Voice and have mixed results, at times I have experienced the problems that Ming/Hydey speak of, and one of the problems seems to be a conflicting program running at the same time, and interferring with the voice. (i.e. Ming/Hydey running something that causes the speakers on his end to not work for voice conversations). The solution that I have found, which is not always successful, is to shut down anything else running, (no idea why some programs interfere and which do, it doesn't seem to relate to sound strangely enough) and get voice working first, then to start any other programs that are needed (in this case Civilization).

Hope this helps someone!

Sparrowhawk
(btw, of the three, MSN is by far the best, though ICQ a close second, Yahoo, while by far the worst, allows for more then 2 users simultaneously, but you must wait for the others to finish speaking before you can speak (like a two way radio, whereas the others are like a telephone).

rah · May 14, 2001, 08:39

War4 and I used it for 6 hours during a game Saturday night.

In the past we used to connect before I fired up Civ, but this time I started civ first to see if it would cause a problem. It did not.

Ming/Hydey, use ctrl/alt/delete and post here all the programs that are running and maybe we can do a comparision with the people that we know it works for.

Rich

SuperSneak · May 14, 2001, 17:32

I doubt they'll do that...'cause we'd see all their porno programs.

Hydey · May 14, 2001, 18:11

I close all my porno pages when I play civ, slows the pornos down too much

------------------
Time share holidays are cool

Hydey will be away again soon

Baron O · May 18, 2001, 00:01

checking the icq site, after i noticed war4ever is not listing icq phone on
his name. i found on the listing of contacts, they have sevices listed and that under icq phone you have launch icq client (icq phone) or preferences.
you have pc to pc call request, pc to phone request, settings, and account.
on settings is a way to check audio setting and setup wizard for checking pc to pc setup.and ways to redo setups in settings. maybe this might be some help to someone

Baron O · May 19, 2001, 01:19

helped get ming, hydey, and get war4ever back up. not a bad nights luck
icq phone does work

Sparrowhawk · May 19, 2001, 01:39

Ooops, in my post above I should have mentioned this,

each of MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger and ICQ Voice has some sort of Audio Wizard, well done dabarano.

Sparrowhawk

(edit, spelled dabarano wrong)
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by Sparrowhawk (edited May 19, 2001).]</font>

Hydey · May 19, 2001, 07:39

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font><font size=1>Originally posted by dabarono on 05-19-2001 01:19 AM</font>
helped get ming, hydey, and get war4ever back up. not a bad nights luck
icq phone does work
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>
Thankyou very much it was cool to have a 4 hour phone call from the US to Australia for no cost

made civ playing very interesting as well.

------------------
Time share holidays are cool

Hydey will be away again soon

Ming · May 19, 2001, 18:48

dabarono...
Thanks! I don't have any clue what you and Rah and did, but it works like a charm now. I look forward to using it in my next game with War4ever, you, or Rah.