(EQ) Problems running gameFollow

Intel Celeron 1.7 GHz
512 Mb Ram
nVidia GeForce 4 MX 440
C: total 28.6 Gb, available 18.2 Gb
Problem occurs: every time I play
Datarate: 7.0 (Cable connection)

The following is a long, but thorough recount of the problem and the steps I've taken to try and resolve it. Should any additional information be required, please don't hesitate to ask.

Symptoms:
1. Game "hiccups" (locks up momentarily, for like a half-second) at regular intervals (approx. every 2 seconds)
2. Music on loading skips dramatically
3. Sound effects (opening bags, changing coins at bank) skip and/or repeat in a weird "echo" effect (on actions coinciding with game "hiccups", see 1.)
4. Disconnected from server (LD) regularly anywhere from immediately after Character Select screen to 5:00 or so after entering world. Unable to stay in game longer than 5 or 6 minutes. Usually less.

Details:
The other night the game started hiccuping on me, momentary lock ups every couple of seconds like a persistant stutter. Went LD (again) and noticed when I logged back in that the loading music was skipping badly, like a scratched cd or a corrupted MP3. Game is still doing the stuttering lock ups when I get back in. I start to get annoyed, realizing I can't really play like this (at least in a group). Maybe I'll go solo tizmaks until it clears up. That was then. At this point, Uthil's in the bank in thurg and I can barely stay online long enough to do anything, let alone get her out of there.

First thought is it's a computer problem...the game is behaving like my system is straining to run it. It shouldn't be, my comp is better than the recommended specs, but maybe I have a virus that's hogging system resources. First thing I do is a virus/spyware scan (Spybot, AntiVir, Housecall). Comes up clean. Run diags on my processor and memory... running a little hot (it's winter and the heater's on in the house) but otherwise ok. All extraneous Processes are killed (Real Update, etc, disabled on startup via msconfig option). HijackThis! is clean as a whistle, too.

Run PingPlotter (a software app that charts a tracert to any server) to check my connection (used Alla's to check, btw ;)). All green, meaning <200 ms to each hop.

TestEverquest sample ping info:
avg: 77
low: 61
high: 93
Sent: 100% Rec'd: 98.5% to 100%

Connection's good.

So, eliminated comp problems, it must be EQ. Well, I Dled the DoN pre-patch. Maybe there was a corrupted file in that. Run the repair option on EQ platinum, no change, so I remove EQ completely and reinstall it from the ground up (yes, I sat through the stupid forever patch, again). Did NOT add the DoN patch. Still not fixed.

Now I don't know what to do. Part of me is in denial assuming the problem will fix itself in time, but it's been 2 days. Then I notice something:

I can get through the EULA just fine.
I can get to the server select screen just fine.
I can load the majority of the character select screen fine, through Loading Player Character Models... and Loading Global Items and Equipment... but the music always starts skipping right around Loading Character Equipment... and Loading Characters... which leads me to think maybe the problem is with my chars or gear on that server.

So the obvious test is to try another server. I log in to my lvl 2 rogue on Bristlebane, and guess what? It works fine. The Mines of Gloomingdeep never looked better. So, my consclusion...

1) Uthil's equipment is bugged, OR
2) Uthil is bugged, OR
3) Morden Rasp hates me

I might be able to do a bug report, IF I could stay online long enough, but since I can usually only go 30 seconds to about 5 mins at this point before going LD, that seems doubtful. Not to mention I don't have a lot of faith in SOE cust serv.

Desperate for ways to seperate my items from myself, I got a bind in Thurg and attacked a guard outside. The guards are very good at what they do and I was dead in seconds.

Repopped in the bank, logged, restarted comp, went back for corpse. When I was first loading EQ, the music was still skipping, but not as much, so I didn't know if that was good or not. I got to my corpse, fingers crossed, cause the game wasn't stuttering anymore. For all intents and purposes it was working fine. I even managed to stay online long enough to get to my corpse and have a short conversation. Full of happy hope, then went LD.

Of course, when I logged back in the problem was back, as bad as ever, and I went LD (again) within like 30 seconds of logging in.

After Morden working for a (short) while before crapping out again, I figured logging in to a character on bristlebane for 2 minutes might not be a sufficient test. So I logged into a server I had never logged in to or made a character for (Brell Serillis) and made a halfling war. Worked fine. Everything's good. Jaunted through the first parts of the tutorial, then went LD again. Logged back in, and the game is stuttering on Brell. It's like a lag, sort of, but more patterned, almost rythmic - 1, 2, hang, 1, 2, hang, 1, 2, hang... it's not even noticable if I'm standing still, but you can tell if I'm trying to do something during the hang, like adjust inventory, and you can really tell when I'm moving, cause the game freezes for a split second every other step. Unlike PoK or Bazaar lag (true lag) it's not dependant on which way I'm facing or how many people in zone.

Getting even more desperate, I crawled through my log after running testeverquest. Not a programmer, inserted comments are all speculation on my part.
Here's where I think it starts loading my account's chars, settings, and equipment (immediately following what's obviously the log lines for "Loading Global Player Characters...").

2005-01-21 00:51:40 Starting load.
2005-01-21 00:51:40
2005-01-21 00:51:41 Attempting to load load2.EQG.
2005-01-21 00:51:41 Verifying world files.
2005-01-21 00:51:41 Loading zone specific files.
2005-01-21 00:51:41 Loading load2_obj2
2005-01-21 00:51:41 Loading load2_obj
2005-01-21 00:51:47 Loading load2_chr2
2005-01-21 00:51:47 Loading load2_chr

HERE! I'm guessing this is right about the time my music starts skipping!
2005-01-21 00:51:47 Failed to open C:\Program Files\Sony\EverQuest\load2_chr.s3d.
!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-01-21 00:51:47
2005-01-21 00:51:47 Loading load2
2005-01-21 00:51:57 Loading objects
2005-01-21 00:51:58 Loading lights
2005-01-21 00:51:59 Initializing cameras.
2005-01-21 00:51:59 Initializing lights.
2005-01-21 00:51:59 Initializing visual effects.
2005-01-21 00:51:59 Initializing target indicator.
2005-01-21 00:51:59 Initializing player path.
2005-01-21 00:51:59 Performing post-load operations.
2005-01-21 00:51:59 Initializing precipitation system.
2005-01-21 00:52:01 World initialized: load2
2005-01-21 00:52:01 load done.
2005-01-21 00:52:01
2005-01-21 00:52:01 Starting char select.
And then it goes to char select screen

So, if this is the problem, then my equipment's not "bugged". I checked my directory, I have a file named "load2_obj.s3d", and one named "load2_switches", but NO FILE NAMED "load2_chr.s3d".

Taking a guess from the other references in the log file (GlobalDWF2.chr), "chr" means Character. (I admit I'm _totally_ inferring from context, I have ZERO programming skills). This doesn't completely make sense, however, since it does load my characters by the time the char select screen pops up.

A little further in the log (5 mins 10 secs after entering world, right on schedule!), I get disco'd, shown here:

2005-01-21 00:57:09 Entering main loop.
2005-01-21 01:02:19 Networking: on terminate DisconnectReasonUnreachableConnection
2005-01-21 01:02:19 disconnected at C:\EQ\EverQuest\EverQuest.cpp:19214 (char. select) DisconnectReasonUnreachableConnection
2005-01-21 01:02:19
2005-01-21 01:02:20 Character is Uthil.
2005-01-21 01:02:20
2005-01-21 01:02:20 YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED.
2005-01-21 01:02:20
2005-01-21 01:02:20 end of DisplayScreen

I hope that the line...
"2005-01-21 01:02:19 disconnected at C:\EQ\EverQuest\EverQuest.cpp:19214 (char. select) DisconnectReasonUnreachableConnection"
...doesn't mean EQ itself (as opposed to a connection problem with my router or ISP) is booting me from the game, but it looks like it to me.

Does anyone have any idea how I fix this? Or know someone who might? I know some people get way into parsing and the code on this game, I just don't know who they are. Any help?

I did run a virus/spyware check. First thing I did. All checks (spyot, anti vir, house call, hijackthis!) came up clean.

It's not a lag issue, the game itself is locking up momentarily. I'll try running Maxmem, but I don't think that's it, either. Opening the task manager while EQ is running shows almost 2/3rds of my physical memory available, and nowhere near my limit on paging file memory. Plus, since my comp hasn't been infected with anything recently, memory issues wouldn't explain why the game ran fine for 2 months and then started crapping out on me.

I still think it might have something to do with the missing .s3d file on loading, but not sure what to do about that since I've already reinstalled EQ.