lockup after long boot

When using internet explorer ver 6.0.2900, pc locks up after home screen, (in my case, Wall Street Journal) which does not load all the way. Whatever I try to open something, eg "About Internet Exporer ", system locks up. Cntrl/alt/del brings up Task Manager, showing my User name (Grammy), ID (0), Status (Active) and Section (Console).When I use "disconnect" button, the Task Manager comes back up and I am right where I started.

At startup , Windows takes about three minutes to load before icons "light up." I tried restoring Windows to a previous date when things worked reasonably well (slow, but no lockup) but it still does the same thing. I can load other programs, such as TV Guide, Shockwave Puzzles, etc. without problems.

It looked like a memory problem because of apparent multiple copies of Task Manager and odd appearance of Wall Street Journal page. I changed virtual memory to let the system decide. The PC seems a bit faster, but there is still a lot of "pounding" on the hard drive.

I have Windows XP Pro,with Service Pack 2 Build 2600.
572 mb of physical memory, availagle 172.38.
total virtual memory 2.00 gb
available vm 1.96 gb

Can anybody help me?

Peggy

 

We need some more information.
Is the browser starting automatically?
If so, change that to manual.
What firewall,antivirus, and antispyware programs are running?
What brand of computer have you?
Suggest you look at the startup programs in msconfig - type it in a start/run window and stop any you don't need.
Also download and run atf-cleaner.exe.

Will await your answers.

 

My cumputer is a Gateway Yorktown

Firewall: Windows ON

Antivirus: Norton 2005

Antispyware: I manually start Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy about once a month.

I removed about six startups (the onces I recognize that I don't need). The others were a mystery

I ran atf and chose all the options for removal.

I start Microsoft Explorer manually. Sometimes my home page will load, and all is well, but most of the time it loads halfway (and lies when it says Done at the bottom of the page.) When that happens, I can't close it because it's frozen. I have to reboot.

Happily I have an icon for the BBS and can open it wihout a problem.

Do you think I can be saved?

Peggy

'

 

Can't find Yorktown at gateway.com; there must be a model or series number on the machine. Need to have that to look up your computer. Need to know how old it is and what the processor and memory size is, among other things.

Meanwhile, suggest you download and install the latest java runtime from Sun. Just click on the underlined name in last sentence.

Is your Norton being updated regularly?

I think it's a good idea to run an online antivirus scan once in a while, too, because malware has become smart enough to hide itself from Norton's and other resident programs. Try kaspersky's and see if it finds anything.

 

Serial number: 0029383280

I think it is 3 or 4 years old -- can't find paperwork; syspect it's in one of the boxes marked3003 or 3004, whatever. I have emailed Gateway support to tell me.

Processor: Pentium 4, 2.53

RAM: 512 MP

Norton is updated regularlly, for all the good it does.

I can't run Kasparsky's because I don't know what the administrator info is.

My 12-year-9od gradnson was fiddling with the computer when I first got it and he removed the administrator info and I don't know how to get it back.

Peggy

 

I just went to the Wall Street Journal webpage and I notice that it trys to open a popup. Have you adjusted the security or privacy settings in Control Panel -> Internet Options? Do you have a third-party popup blocker?

"Pounding the HDD "...run a Disk Defragmentation (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools) and choose to run it even if it is "not required ". Norton AV...err...I would probably look no further if I had "disk pounding ". Me, I would run a full scan, then uninstall NAV, reboot several times to check the situation, then reinstall (an updated version of 2005 if it was available).

Matt

 

locks up after long boot

Privacy and Security are at default. I don't remember adding a 3rd party pop up blocker and Windows' popup says Block. I do have a Hate Span added in email.

I defragged the disk and removed Norton, which I updated with $$$ last April.
Now system is a bit faster, the icons "light up" quickly, but it still takes about 2 minutes for the system to fall silent after loading.

But, IE still fails to load all the way, and cannot be closed or changed (it locks up.) I can bring up the Task Manager, as noted before, but disconnecting it brings up another Task Manager with the same lockup problem. Home page WSJ has black spaces in the heading and no text.
Reboot is next step. However, occasionally IE works, that is, WSJ loads all the way and I can move on. However, rebotting is getting old.

Thanks for the help. Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas, whatever is suitable.

Peggy

 

Download and install free AVG antivirus
Also get their (all free) antispyware and antirootkit and install.

Have you tried Firefox or Seamonkey (what I use)? Less likely to have problems, especially with security. Would like to see you use one of them.

 

That is the HDD, correct? If there is constant HDD activity it would appear to be programs being loaded in the background. If there are pauses there may be user/logon problems and "removed the administrator info" scares me a little.

You may want to report to us those items that are still listed in msconfig -> Startup and there are several programs that allow you to control them, one I know best is Startup Cop. Search this forum for other suggestions.

You could try making another user account and see how the startup runs when you log into that account (see User Accounts in Control Panel). You can simply delete that account if it makes no difference.

Holidays, more like Study Leave for me You have a good Xmas as well.

Matt

 

Try this

Listen this should be the easiest way to do it go to start, run and type msconfig and click startup disable everything, reboot then in anything isn't disabled those might be viurses, look those up on the net.

 

If you have installed winpatrol as I suggested just rt-clk on the taskbar icon (scotty dog) and choose display startup info. There you can see (more than with msconfig) and either disable or even delete items (they're just pointers; you're not deleting the programs). Deleting them stops dumb error messages from windows telling you that you've booted without some startup program (which you already know).

Edit: looking back i see you weren't told to get it (winpatrol). You can click here to get it.

 

See you're online. This is a bump in case you missed the edit above.

 

Thanks for the help

I ran startup cop. I have a lot of things in startup, most of which look standard, either large or small company or obvious like Google.

I deleted broadjump, which was listed as spyware. I will review the stuff that gets loaded at startup to see which I really need.

I loaded AVG and found a half dozen medium threat things that I took action on as suggested.


I created a new user for logon.

With this new user, I can now logon with IIE without a problem, but I still installed Firefox as default for this new user. Firefox said it would copy my Favorites, but it seems not to have done so. It's just as well. I had too many anyway, and the ones I can recall will be the ones I really need.

I'm not sure what to do about email, but I'm sure I will figure it out.

Mil gracias.

Peggy

 

Firefox is a striped down version of Mozilla which has been renamed in its latest reincarnation (=version) to Seamonkey (obtainable from mozilla website). It handles webmail and everything else, including web page creation and editing.

It's not for a computer with a tiny HDD but modern computers can handle it just fine.