Can't Connect to Any Race Servers

[agaron5]

So I wanted to start racing online in NR2003 and for some reason I can't connect to any servers on my PC through SMS lobby. I keep getting "Timed out opening communications channel." And then it stops trying to connect and asks me if I want to retry. I tried reconnecting a couple of times and then gave up and started trying to connect to other servers and got the same problem over and over again no matter what I tried to join. So I decided to do a test to see if it was just a port forward problem. I took my P.O.S. laptop and installed NR2003 (To my surprise the game actually ran without problems on my craptop) and installed SMS Lobby and tried to connect to a server. I was able to get in with absolutely no problem. I then tried logging in to the same server on my PC and, surprise surprise, "Timed out opening communications channel." My PC runs Windows 8 and my laptop Windows 7. The thing is my PC has Norton on it and my laptop doesn't. That leads me to believe it's got to be something with Norton but even with Norton's firewall turned off, I still got the same error. I have completely run out of ideas and if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them because I'm just overly frustrated with this. I've tried to Google for solutions and I get maybe 2 or 3 hits. Absolutely nothing. So if anyone can help I'd be very appreciative. Thanks for any future help (y)

 

[Ten0r]

Are you sure that it's just Norton firewall that you have turned on? Sometimes windows firewall stays on in the background. I haven't played around with it on 8, but I'd try setting the game to allow in there as well.

 

[agaron5]

Are you sure that it's just Norton firewall that you have turned on? Sometimes windows firewall stays on in the background. I haven't played around with it on 8, but I'd try setting the game to allow in there as well.

I did. Still no luck :/