connectivity issues

[Budman]

May 23rd was the last time I could use the internet.
I have read innumerable threads, loaded numerous anti-spy
& viral software. I've researched for over a month now
and tried almost everything...even phone calls to tech
support, to no avail. Microsoft says it's an ISP issue
and the ISP says it's not. Here's the very condensed
Windows XP Issues I am encountering:

* Upon startup, computer slow (too many things loading in
the background possibly?)I have found NO virus or spyware
anywhere. I have Ad-aware, Spybot, Norton Anti-Virus,
Zone Alarm, etc. All programs find no errors, viruses,
etc. Since I can't browse the internet, I cannot download
updates efficiently.

* Upon clicking IE browser, get error as follows:
(C:/windows/system32/shdoclc.dll/dnserror.htm)
I can ping and access my ISP's website, but that is all,
and cannot surf outside of that site....nothing. I
connect fine to my dial-up, but it's as if software is not
communicating with the modem. Modem's fine.

* Upon downloading LSP-fix, there's a protocol handler
that looks incomplete in the 'remove' section of the LSP
program.....says it (the symbol displayed) is not a valid
integer. What does that mean?

*On occasion at shutdown, I get a message that indicates
that "other users are logged on and shutting down will
disable them." I'm not on a network, and this message
doesn't happen every time I shut down.

As a side note, I've noticed in the system's processes
that there are 4 (four) svchost.exe programs running
simultaneously. Is this normal?

Any of this ring a bell with anyone? Will performing an
XP upgrade re-establish any corrupted items....and not
wipe out my hard drive or any data from other programs?

Budman

 

[R. McCarty]

The "Other" users is normally a Fast User Switching type of
situation. SVCHost is a normal XP service. You can see the
internal individual processes by running a Tasklist /SVC from
a Command Prompt.
To eliminate a profile issue, you should log in to the default
Administrator account and see if your networking issues are
present in that profile as well.
You should also invest some time in the Services running on
your PC. While you may have no Viruses, Trojans, etc, the
"Other users" is troubling. Make sure that Telnet and FTP
are not running/Automatic.
On the Repair install, I'd hold off on that for now. Whatever
your current configuration, it would carry over to a refreshed
install.

 

[Budman]

Thanks for the reply.
Any short method to check that Protocol Handler situation
I described with the Winsock repair tool - LSP fix? Could
the TCP/IP be corrupt? But would the dial-up still work
if it were?

System: I have 26 processes running. I've been keeping
an eye on them. Nothing seems unusual except for the
multiple svchost.exe files running simultaneously.

Upon start-up it just takes too long to load the tray
icons (only 4 of them)

Budman

 

[Darren]

Regarding your IE error. Sounds like you're not getting assigned DNS
servers to resolve host names to IP's. Have you tried running
"IPCONFIG /all" from the command line? No DNS IP's in that list would
explain that error your getting. If the servers are being listed try
pinging them.

The SVChost process is I believe a result of the Fast user switching
feature in XP. Pretty confident that is nothing to worry about.