NetZero and Windows XP SP2

[Guest]

System: Netzero Platinum 7.0, Windows XP (Home) SP2, 256 MB RAM, IE 6.0,
McAfee 8.0, Windows firewall enabled, with Exec.exe and Iexplore.exe allowed
as exceptions.

Have noted this problem and tried to contact Netzero support earlier too,
but have not received a response. Have just tried again; figured I should
now try the newsgroup as well.

Ever since the Windows XP SP2 patch was applied, after dialing up and
successfully logging on (the small console comes up too), Netzero tends to
cause the computer to be frozen from anywhere between 5 and 12 minutes, while
nothing is being transmitted over the modem. IE will not come on, task
manager cannot be brought on, etc. Either one has to wait for a long time
before everything that you clicked on suddenly opens up (including IE) as
something releases the system, or one has to force a disconnect from the
Network Connections window in XP if nothing happens for even 12-15 minutes.
In case of the forced disconnect too, sometimes nothing will respond and a
hard reboot becomes necessary.

This issue is erratic, so it will occur every 7 out of 10 times, and was not
present before the XP SP2 patch was applied, but appears to be directly
related to Netzero and XP SP2, as no other program on the system causes this
kind of a hangup (or near hangup), and this did not occur until the patch was
applied.

I have checked for spyware and found none. I have also tried removing and
reinstalling Netzero to no avail.

I would appreciate any help. Thanks!

 

[Drew Tognola]

pdgcss,

The long delays & sudden appearance of all your prior clicks is your CPU
and/or Memory at it's maximum usage. right-click on your lower task bar and
open 'Task Manager', click the 'Processes' tab, under the 'CPU' column see
which processes are at a high percentage. Net-Zero could be the culprit
since it is free and they probably drop countless adware onto your computer.
How many processes are you running?

Drew


System: Netzero Platinum 7.0, Windows XP (Home) SP2, 256 MB RAM, IE 6.0,
McAfee 8.0, Windows firewall enabled, with Exec.exe and Iexplore.exe allowed
as exceptions.

Have noted this problem and tried to contact Netzero support earlier too,
but have not received a response. Have just tried again; figured I should
now try the newsgroup as well.

Ever since the Windows XP SP2 patch was applied, after dialing up and
successfully logging on (the small console comes up too), Netzero tends to
cause the computer to be frozen from anywhere between 5 and 12 minutes,
while
nothing is being transmitted over the modem. IE will not come on, task
manager cannot be brought on, etc. Either one has to wait for a long time
before everything that you clicked on suddenly opens up (including IE) as
something releases the system, or one has to force a disconnect from the
Network Connections window in XP if nothing happens for even 12-15 minutes.
In case of the forced disconnect too, sometimes nothing will respond and a
hard reboot becomes necessary.

This issue is erratic, so it will occur every 7 out of 10 times, and was not
present before the XP SP2 patch was applied, but appears to be directly
related to Netzero and XP SP2, as no other program on the system causes this
kind of a hangup (or near hangup), and this did not occur until the patch
was
applied.

I have checked for spyware and found none. I have also tried removing and
reinstalling Netzero to no avail.

I would appreciate any help. Thanks!

 

[Raymond J. Johnson Jr.]

| pdgcss,
|
| The long delays & sudden appearance of all your prior clicks is your CPU
| and/or Memory at it's maximum usage. right-click on your lower task bar
and
| open 'Task Manager', click the 'Processes' tab, under the 'CPU' column see
| which processes are at a high percentage. Net-Zero could be the culprit
| since it is free and they probably drop countless adware onto your
computer.
| How many processes are you running?
|
| Drew

Why not try reading the post before responding? The OP said that he couldn't
get Task Manager to come up. Also, NetZero is *not* free, and hasn't been
for quite a while.

The OP needs to talk to NetZero about this.

 

[Drew Tognola]

Ray,

It's people like you that make others not want to post their questions. I'm
not sure why I'm even responding but the message said it Task Manager would
come up after a while. That was point of his question. As far as NetZero not
being free anymore...Who cares?

Drew


| pdgcss,
|
| The long delays & sudden appearance of all your prior clicks is your CPU
| and/or Memory at it's maximum usage. right-click on your lower task bar
and
| open 'Task Manager', click the 'Processes' tab, under the 'CPU' column see
| which processes are at a high percentage. Net-Zero could be the culprit
| since it is free and they probably drop countless adware onto your
computer.
| How many processes are you running?
|
| Drew

Why not try reading the post before responding? The OP said that he couldn't
get Task Manager to come up. Also, NetZero is *not* free, and hasn't been
for quite a while.

The OP needs to talk to NetZero about this.

 

[Granny]

Also, NetZero is *not* free, and hasn't been

for quite a while.

Hmmm, I am sending this from my crappy but FREE FREE FREE
NetZero account

 

[Raymond J. Johnson Jr.]

| Ray,
|
| It's people like you that make others not want to post their questions.
I'm
| not sure why I'm even responding but the message said it Task Manager
would
| come up after a while. That was point of his question. As far as NetZero
not
| being free anymore...Who cares?
|
| Drew
|

If resources were freed to the point that Task Manager (and other things,
apparently) would open, and your theory regarding the cause being 100%
processor usage were correct, how would using Task Manager help *after* the
processor had been freed up?

 

[Raymond J. Johnson Jr.]

| > Also, NetZero is *not* free, and hasn't been
| >for quite a while.
|
|
|
| Hmmm, I am sending this from my crappy but FREE FREE FREE
| NetZero account

Granny:
I'm glad to hear you're getting it free. I guess I was wrong about NetZero.

 

[Guest]

Thank you, all, for responding, and apologies for triggering an argument in
which everyone has got something right!

I. There is a "free NetZero" and a "paid NetZero." I have the paid version
(Platinum) - $9.95/month, no ads except one that shows up when logging on.

II. The task manager is indeed frozen out as well but, when I do force a
disconnect (when I have lost patience), there is a "twilight zone" when I CAN
bring up the task manager, but the rest of the system is still largely
unresponsive. Unfortunately, though there are several processes running (30
or so), ~97% of the CPU time is used by the System Idle process.
Unfortunately, I cannot remember how the memory usage is divided. However, I
do remember going to the Performance tab and looking at the graphs for mem
usage. The usage never seems to be more than about 10-25% of the available
memory. I do agree that this does not tell me how bad things were when I
could NOT get to the task manager.

III. I did finally get a response from NetZero:

We suggest you try the following troubleshooting steps to get your problem
resolved.

1) Disable background applications before connecting to NetZero. To do so

Windows XP Users:

1. Press and hold the "Ctrl," "Alt" and
"Delete" keys at the same time.
2. Select the Processes tab.
3. For every program except "Explorer" click once on each program listed
to highlight it and click on the "End Process" button.
4. Try the NetZero connection again. If this resolves the problem, close
NetZero and restart your computer.
5. Repeat steps 1. through 3., clicking "End Process" for only one
program at a time. Each time you use End Process, try the NetZero
connection again.
6. When the error is no longer being received, the last program closed
with End Process is the one creating the conflict.
7. Once the conflicting program is found, please close it before you
logon to NetZero. You can also contact the program's manufacturer to see if
they have more information about a solution so both NetZero and this program
can be used at the same time.

2) Lower Hardware acceleration.

A. Click Start | Settings (Win2000 only) | Control Panel
B. Double-click the "Display" icon
C. Click the "Settings" tab
D. Click Advanced
E. Click the "Troubleshoot" tab
F. Click on the "Hardware Acceleration" slider and holding your mouse
button down, move it all the way to the left.

3) Update the display adapter driver. The correct display adapter needs to
be identified.

A. Click | Start | Settings | Control Panel
B. Double-click the "Display" icon
C. Select the "Settings" tab and click on the "Advanced"
button on the bottom
D. Select the "Adapter" tab. Your video card model should be listed
here
i. If Standard Display Adapter (VGA) or Standard PCI Graphics Adapter (VGA)
is
listed, member will need to contact the computer manufacturer to get the
proper
driver

4. Run Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter from the Tools tab of the drive's
properties.

IV. I have run the Scandisk and Defrag, checked that I do have correct
NVIDIA display adapter and driver, and don't know if hardware acceleration is
something one controls in XP (I will look for it, but NZ's tech support
seemed to indicate it as being specific to Windows 2000). Ending one process
at a time did not seem to be too meaningful, as the problem is not a
reproducible and so I wouldn't necessarily be able to tell if a specific
process is causing a conflict. However, I did go to msconfig to turn off all
startup processes from starting up that were non-Microsoft and non-McAfee
(this included processes related and external Iomega Zip drive and all Roxio
(Drg to Disk, etc.) related processes as well). I also deleted all of IE's
history, temp internet files and cookies.

Unless there are any other suggestions, I am going to monitor the system
behavior over the next few days to see if this mini-tune up has any effect of
the performance and dial-up related delays and get back to this board with an
update.

Thanks to all!

 

[Cyrus Afzali]

| > Also, NetZero is *not* free, and hasn't been
| >for quite a while.
|
|
|
| Hmmm, I am sending this from my crappy but FREE FREE FREE
| NetZero account

Granny:
I'm glad to hear you're getting it free. I guess I was wrong about NetZero.

NetZero Hi Speed, which is what they're now pushing most, is indeed
not free -- it's $9.95 a month for 56K access. I'm not sure whether
they're signing up any new free accounts, but there are definitely
legacy ones out there.