IE6 Freezes - but works in safe mode

Hope you guys can help! My wife’s computer began experiencing a severe slowdown in IE6 about a week ago. To my knowledge she hasn’t installed any software or anything that would have directly caused this, but I can’t be sure. Its a Compaq Presario, about a year old, at least a 2 gig Celeron with 128 meg ram, XP Home, etc, with a cable modem and cable router feeding its internet /email connection.

The symptoms are as follows: When you launch an IE session, the default web page comes up fairly quickly, and although it says "DONE" at the bottom left, the progress bar on the bottom right still displays, and you can’t scroll down or click anything, including stop or back, nor any links on the page, for at least 15 seconds. IE is effectively locked up until the progress bar disappears. The computer itself is OK, since you can go to other programs like Outlook Express or Word and work while you wait for the page to unlock.

The system has NAV that updates itself and runs a scan nightly. I updated and ran Spybot. I also cleared the Internet Temporary Files, History, and Cookies. None of this had any effect. I updated from MS to insure I had all the latest bug fixes. No help there. Next I went into MSCONFIG and disabled all startup files and re-booted, but it had no effect. Finally, I re-booted in Safe mode with network support. It works perfectly in that mode. Pages come up instantly, and you can click links and scroll immediately even while the page is still loading.

I haven’t tried the Internet Explorer Repair Tool as explained in another thread, but since IE6 works beautifully in Safe mode, it would seem to be something external to IE6 that is interfering. Acts exactly like a spy program is reporting IE activity, but Spybot cleaned everything it found. Any suggestions?

 

One more thing to clarify, the symptoms continue as you surf from page to page, it is not just at the default page that it behaves this way.

 

Wow! Two days and not one reply? This is a first. Doesn't anyone have a suggestion? Help!?

 

Well, you have done everything I would suggest. Maybe to see what if anything is talking out to the net would be download a firewall like Kerio or Zone Alarm.

 

Did she by chance install Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (KB832894) MS Details here A few of us have been having some rather odd IE behavior since this install.

Johanna

 

Thanks for the quick responses! I'll try these tonight and post back with the results.

 

IExplorer started freezing on me again,so I downloaded AVANT browser. Took about 15 seconds to install, it saved all my settings, addresses, etc. Has a built-in pop-up blocker, skins, tabs etc.

And I honestly believe it loads pages much faster. No more freezes...and it's free.
Avant Browser

 

Thanks for the link...I downloaded the update last Saturday and have been experiencing problems with my cpu running at 100% continually.

I'm not sure the update is responsible...but, you never know...

 

OK, guys, the good news is it is fixed! And by the way, my wife says "Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!! ".

Since I had already updated and run Spybot, I didn't expect Ad-aware to find anything. Wrong! It found 75 objects (30 registry keys, 8 registry values, 33 files and 4 folders!). After it cleaned them, I re-booted and checked it again, and all was clean. Now web pages come up almost instantly!

Since it is working perfectly now, I didn't get around to using CWShredder or HijackThis. But for future reference, can anyone tell me what these two utilities do exactly? They may help me fix my son's computer.

Thanks again for your assistance. This BBS is the greatest!

 

Thanks Pete! I'll download CWShredder and run it also then. Thanks again for the clarification!

 

jdeanhall--CWShredder should only be run when you have detected that you have elements of the CoolWebSearch malware on your PC. CWShredder is not a detection tool. It is a fix, when other fixes have not worked. Since things are running OK and you have deleted malware detected by AdAware and SpybotS&D, I would not run CWShredder.
Concerning HiJackThis, it is a program specifically for the detection of malware which has "hijacked" your home page and search functions, although it does detect other malware. As PeteC has said its log is a little hard to interpret, but here are two tutorials
http://hjt.wizardsofwebsites.com/
http://www.merijn.org/htlogtutorial.html
Once again, unless you are having problems with the home page and search functions, perhaps there is no need to run at this time.

 

HiJack This Explained

Thanks for the link WelshJim- I just made a pdf of the first tutorial for reference. If anybody wants one, email me off list with BBS in the subject line.

Johanna