G
Guest
I have been working on systems for well over 15 years. I consider my self a
highly skilled technician, and charge accordingly. I cannot figure this one
out...
A friend asked me to work on her lap top. I normally don't work for
individuals, as working for businesses makes me a lot more money, but she's a
friend, and seemed desperate. Now I understand why.
ISSUE: She's got a lot of them, but this is the main problem. In normal
mode, internet explorer will not display any web pages. However, if you try
to bring up any site (By IP, or URL) and let it sit there for 30 minutes, it
will eventually. Then, once it brings up a single page, you can browe. BUT
ONLY IF YOU ACTUALLY TYPE "HTTP://" AT THE START OF THE URL OR Click on a
link on the page it finally brings up. Now, to make matters worse, it does
not exhibit any of these problems in Safe Mode With Networking. In that
mode, everything works perfect. I can browse with no lag what so ever, I
can do just about anything.
Opening My Computer takes an eternity as well, and most of the time will not
work, except in safe mode!
To throw a kink into the mix, the machine also exhibits a few other odd
problems. First, I can't install a McAfee Antivirus Corporate edition on
the machine. It just stalls out at the "preparing to install" step. I was
able to install things like TweakXp4, Adobe Acrobat, and Windows XP SP2.
McAfee Antivirus Corporate edition 7.1 will not install! Anything using the
Windows Installer service simply hangs, and does not install.
Other behaviors of note. SOMETIMES, not always, when you go into internet
options, and hit the connections tab, the system will hang. Sometimes
opening my computer hangs.
Here are some of the things I have already done.
Since this seemed at first to be a routing issue of some kind, I tried the
standard networking tests. IN ANY MODE, the machine can ping ANYTHING. I
can do an NSLOOKUP from dos, and resolve any URL. I can ping based on IP or
URL with no isues. But, I still blew out TCP/IP with the NETSH Int IP reset
logfile.txt command as well as with a winsock repair utility. LIke I said,
connectivity works with no problem, it seems to be something else.
I have turned off EVERY autostart on this machine.
Disabled sytstem restore
This is Windows XP home. I installed XP SP2, and when that did not solve the
issue, I installed Windows XP PRO /SP2.
Ran Spybot S&D like 5 times (In normal mode, and safe mode)
Ran Antivirus (MCafee online scan, and trend micro online scan) Several
times.
Ran Microsoft Antispyware. 3x now.
Ran McAfee Antispyware. Several times, found a couple things, nothing
horendous.
Ran Hijack this, and yanked out everything that should not be there (YEs,
there were some issues, but I don't believe this to be a spyware/virus issue
at this point!) Ran it several times, normal mode and safe mode.
Did a disk defrag (Yeah, waste of time on this issue, but it needed it).
Ran scan disk, no errors.
Reinstalled Windows XP SP2 AGAIN.
In safe mode, I uninstalled stuff like Wild Tangent and all the games
associated with it.
I was starting to think it was a memory issue, so I swapped out the memoy
and this did nothing. The problem remained unaffected.
Ran windows Update (Once I was able to get a page loaded!) but windows
update just hangs once it begins the downloads and downloads nothing at all.
Ran SFC /Scannow
Extracted rundll32.exe to the windows\system32 folder as I found like 12
copies of that file (10 in prefetcher, and 2 elsewhere)
At times this system is very slow. But there is pleanty of space on the
drive.
In the device manager there was entry that was failing, an infrared port.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled it. Nothing else shows up in the device
manager as problematic.
I have reset internet explorer settings to defaults, but something keeps
resetting the "restricted sites" zone.
I have cleared out the windows\temp folder and temporary internet explorer
files.
Normally, I would simply just blow out the OS, format the drive, and
reinstall everything. However, there are a few things on this system that
cannot be reinstalled as the original media cannot be located. So, I am
willing to entertain ANY suggestions. Be it as stupid and small sounding,
to anything just short of drive format/reinstall. (I know I may still have
to do that, but I really want to figure this one out.)
The system is an HP Pavilions ze5000 with 256 megs ran, 30 gig HD, windows
XP PRO w/SP2. It's a P4, it uses a corelogic chipset. Anybody know where
I can get a drive update for that chipset. The HP web site, as usual is a
complete waste of time. If there is a way to give extra points on a
question, I would. I don't want to just format the drive, I would like to
beat this problem, and I see formatting as a sign of giving up!!!!
highly skilled technician, and charge accordingly. I cannot figure this one
out...
A friend asked me to work on her lap top. I normally don't work for
individuals, as working for businesses makes me a lot more money, but she's a
friend, and seemed desperate. Now I understand why.
ISSUE: She's got a lot of them, but this is the main problem. In normal
mode, internet explorer will not display any web pages. However, if you try
to bring up any site (By IP, or URL) and let it sit there for 30 minutes, it
will eventually. Then, once it brings up a single page, you can browe. BUT
ONLY IF YOU ACTUALLY TYPE "HTTP://" AT THE START OF THE URL OR Click on a
link on the page it finally brings up. Now, to make matters worse, it does
not exhibit any of these problems in Safe Mode With Networking. In that
mode, everything works perfect. I can browse with no lag what so ever, I
can do just about anything.
Opening My Computer takes an eternity as well, and most of the time will not
work, except in safe mode!
To throw a kink into the mix, the machine also exhibits a few other odd
problems. First, I can't install a McAfee Antivirus Corporate edition on
the machine. It just stalls out at the "preparing to install" step. I was
able to install things like TweakXp4, Adobe Acrobat, and Windows XP SP2.
McAfee Antivirus Corporate edition 7.1 will not install! Anything using the
Windows Installer service simply hangs, and does not install.
Other behaviors of note. SOMETIMES, not always, when you go into internet
options, and hit the connections tab, the system will hang. Sometimes
opening my computer hangs.
Here are some of the things I have already done.
Since this seemed at first to be a routing issue of some kind, I tried the
standard networking tests. IN ANY MODE, the machine can ping ANYTHING. I
can do an NSLOOKUP from dos, and resolve any URL. I can ping based on IP or
URL with no isues. But, I still blew out TCP/IP with the NETSH Int IP reset
logfile.txt command as well as with a winsock repair utility. LIke I said,
connectivity works with no problem, it seems to be something else.
I have turned off EVERY autostart on this machine.
Disabled sytstem restore
This is Windows XP home. I installed XP SP2, and when that did not solve the
issue, I installed Windows XP PRO /SP2.
Ran Spybot S&D like 5 times (In normal mode, and safe mode)
Ran Antivirus (MCafee online scan, and trend micro online scan) Several
times.
Ran Microsoft Antispyware. 3x now.
Ran McAfee Antispyware. Several times, found a couple things, nothing
horendous.
Ran Hijack this, and yanked out everything that should not be there (YEs,
there were some issues, but I don't believe this to be a spyware/virus issue
at this point!) Ran it several times, normal mode and safe mode.
Did a disk defrag (Yeah, waste of time on this issue, but it needed it).
Ran scan disk, no errors.
Reinstalled Windows XP SP2 AGAIN.
In safe mode, I uninstalled stuff like Wild Tangent and all the games
associated with it.
I was starting to think it was a memory issue, so I swapped out the memoy
and this did nothing. The problem remained unaffected.
Ran windows Update (Once I was able to get a page loaded!) but windows
update just hangs once it begins the downloads and downloads nothing at all.
Ran SFC /Scannow
Extracted rundll32.exe to the windows\system32 folder as I found like 12
copies of that file (10 in prefetcher, and 2 elsewhere)
At times this system is very slow. But there is pleanty of space on the
drive.
In the device manager there was entry that was failing, an infrared port.
I have uninstalled and reinstalled it. Nothing else shows up in the device
manager as problematic.
I have reset internet explorer settings to defaults, but something keeps
resetting the "restricted sites" zone.
I have cleared out the windows\temp folder and temporary internet explorer
files.
Normally, I would simply just blow out the OS, format the drive, and
reinstall everything. However, there are a few things on this system that
cannot be reinstalled as the original media cannot be located. So, I am
willing to entertain ANY suggestions. Be it as stupid and small sounding,
to anything just short of drive format/reinstall. (I know I may still have
to do that, but I really want to figure this one out.)
The system is an HP Pavilions ze5000 with 256 megs ran, 30 gig HD, windows
XP PRO w/SP2. It's a P4, it uses a corelogic chipset. Anybody know where
I can get a drive update for that chipset. The HP web site, as usual is a
complete waste of time. If there is a way to give extra points on a
question, I would. I don't want to just format the drive, I would like to
beat this problem, and I see formatting as a sign of giving up!!!!
