I'm sick of connection errors / I need a new controller

I keep getting connection errors with POS, I mean EASO. The worst part is that it tells the other player that I quit (I think). At least it doesn't count against me as a disconnect. The worst was tonight in a close game, I was down by 5, 1 minute to go, other guy dunks on me, and BOOM, connection error. The dude thought I quit! Bad, bad, bad situation.

When it happens, it always happens an instant after a basket is made. Somebody told me online that it might be my controller -- Thrustmaster Dual Power -- and from other threads, you know I'm thinking of ditching it anyway.

Any idea if the error could be because of my controller? Also, then, what should I get? A pal just got the Nostromo n45, what do y'all think of it?

Edit: One more thing... could this be because I have custom button mappings?

I doubt its because of the gamepad. I think they have some problems with their servers or something like that. I sent an email to customer service and they were pretty good about contacting me back. The guy had me check my hops to EASO and then my didiag and my sound and video. All no luck. The last email I got from them seemed like some BS to me. They had me Uninstall and reinstall the game. ( LIke I hadn't tried to do that already ) He had me backup my Nba Live folder in my documents and change the name of the directoryand reinstall the game.
Hell I took it one step further and reinstalled XP on another drive just to see if a file had got corrupted. All no Luck.

This is really pisisng me off cause one of my buddies stays across town and we play online against each other all the time in sports games. We normally have a good connection and the game runs almost like playing the cpu. I mostly only get them when playing him. I haven't been able to finish a game against him in a couple of weeks. I can finish games against others but mostly when Im losing. Seems like whenever Im whoopin some ass I get a connection error.

BTW , have you had any problems with the gamepad cutting on and off while in a game? My buddy had some problems with that. He'd have to unplug and plug it back up again to get it working. I had problems with that too for a while until I went out and bought another game pad. Its actually the same one I had before just new.

While Im thinking about that lemme try and plug up my old stick and see if I can finish a game.

Im not going to get into my Thoerys about why there are so many connection errors on EASO, i have posted many different times about many different possibilitys throughout this forum. As u know Obeyguy, me and u are in the same boat when it comes to gamepads, my advice to everybody is wait until EA rls the official patch b4 u start spending any money on new gamepads and such. In all honesty if they dont fix the problems i done playing online.

Extremely Annoying Server Obviously crap which is why its free this year

I get the same thing too.
It doesnt happens as much any more..
Most of the time it happens right after a dunk and when the replay is about to show..
I think it my have something to do with the replay.. They should make it possible for us to disable replays in online games.. it is just annoying half the time.


I NEVER TOOK A SHOT I DIDNT LIKE

Yeah, good calls by you all. I plan to wait for the official patch, but I'm still waiting for the Live 2001 patch, if you know what I mean (will it ever get here?!?).

I have replays turned down to the minimum, but they still show anyway. In fact, I've played with a guy who did the same on his side, but we still had problems. <sigh>