Ok all, here's a problem for ya. (computer related)

[shawn stonbraker 2]

I am still having problems getting my computer to hook up to the internet. Actually, it's my wife since I'm at work right now. She's tried to get on most times during the week around 8PM and the computer will not hook to the internet. No matter if she tries to do it manually or not. When I get home (midnight) it's fine. Hooks up automatically with no problems. Now, here is the interesting part, tonight, she had the same problem and decided to just go ahaed and get caught up printing out pictures off the computer for our albums. When she went to "my pictures", the the computer acts like it is hooked to the internet. She says the "favorites" box (the one that shows up on the left side of the screen when you hit favorites) pops up and then disappears. She says it's like someone's on it. What can be causing this? Here are the few things recently I have done or has happened on the computer that is "new":



1. I had joined "photobucket.com" and uploaded some pics to my site, but didn't start the subscription from my computer.



2. The first night that this started happening, my wife while on the computer, accidentally hit the power button on the surge protector with her foot, shutting down the computer. When she turned it back on, it wouldn't connect. But when I got home later that night, I checked all the wiring i the back to make sure nothing was loose, and when I turned the computer on, it worked fine. Only to have the same problem the next night.



What the hell could be the problem? Even over the weekend I tried numerous times at night and all worked well. Virus? Trogen? what? It's got me baffled.:wacko:

 

[TomT]

Sure sounds like a program has hijacked your computer. A little more info please. How do you connect to the Internet? Dial up, DSL, or cable? Do you use a wireless modem? If so, do you have a firewall? What virus protection do you have? Do you have Windows Defender? It does a good job of keeping pesky programs from taking over your computer.

 

[user 62851]

sounds kinda like operator error? or its bad traffic on the net when she is trying to access it. is this wireless connection? only reason i ask, b/c a friend of mine gets his net for free. his neighbor has wireless in the townhouse, and he just steals their connection to his puter. not sure if that if someone was stealing it, if it would cause lag or not. Prolly wouldnt hurt to run a virus check and stuff, but doubt it will help correct the problem.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

Ok, lets see if I can answer.



1. It's DSL through Verizon and not wireless.

2. I only use the Firewall on Windows XP sp2. (I know don't kill me)

3. AVG virus protection that gets updated every time I get on the computer. (can't seem to get the wife into the rutine of doing it every time she gets on)

4. I have Adware and Spybot. Both get updated weekly. (I've become very religious about keeping everything updated, both the virus and the spy/adware)



Now like I said, when I get home, there isn't a dang thing wrong with it. I can do whatever, for however long with no problems. We both use the same profile. So it's nothing like it could just be her user profile settings.

 

[Don Pertz]

Im not sure but I had serious problems with AVG. I dumped it and downloaded Avast and havent had the same problems since.

 

[Keith Lewis]

If you can connect and she can't, it sounds like an operator error.



Spend the 40 bucks and get a router to do your PPPoE connection and you can take the operator error out of the picture (and be more secure at the same time).

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

Well, I'm home now and as you can see, no problem hooking up.:wacko:



Don, I've been using AVG for about 3 years now with no problems. Had problems (viruses)with both McAffee and Norton before going to AVG.



Daeron, what do you mean "get a router"? I have one that Verizon sent. Just curious.

 

[Keith Lewis]

Did they send you a router or a modem? Chances are, if you have to do a PPPoE connection on your computer, it's just a modem. Go get a Linksys router (don't need the fancy schmancy one with all the wireless stuff if you don't need it) and basically you hook it up to the modem, then hook your computer up to it, set it up to connect to your modem (you'll put your connection info into the router following the setup instructions that comes with the router) and you are set

 

[Todd Cloutier]

How is your computer connected to the device that Verizon gave you, USB or ethernet?



Daeron is correct about a router making life a bit easier. Either a Linksys or Netgear router will work. They have an added bonus of including a firewall and masking your computer via network address translation (NAT).

 

[Jake Levin]

Stone, why don't you have her try and connect while you watch, instead of you connecting, then you can rule out the operator error.



It's possibly a timing issue when the network traffic is overloaded b\c everyone is home from work and jumping on the network. You see this primarily with cable not DSL, but anything is possible.

 

[Dre L]

I vote for network downtime / maintenance.



When in doubt Fdisk.

 

[Gerald Pierce]

3. AVG virus protection that gets updated every time I get on the computer. (can't seem to get the wife into the rutine of doing it every time she gets on)

Mine is set to update automatically.... I couldn't ever get the others in the house to do it on their own, so I got rid of all the AV programs we had and put AVG on them.... all are set up the same way and I don't have to remember who has what installed.

 

[Brian Curry]

ahhh ... this may be a dumb question ......you do regular scans I not just updates right

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

brianC, yes I do a full system scan every other Sun. I have to due to my wife not really paying to much attention to the e-mails her dad sends. (he sells Alaskin Klee-Ki's)



Ok, sorry for not getting back to this, but I did have it happen to me this morning. I unplugged the modem for about 10 min and when it hooked back up all seemed fine. No problems getting it to hook up automatically on start up. Even though I shut it down and turned it back on numerous times.



Now, here is a rundown of problems I seen after this. When I would get onto the internet, the favorites column would show up for no reason at all. If you hit the "x" to close it out it would come back up. Then the webpage would go to "fullscreen" (without any of the buttons or header) then back to normal and then to condensed screen. All without any of my doing. If I went to "my computer" or "control panel" or "my pisctures", it did the same thing.



I ran the virus scan in safe mode and also the ad/spy scan. Nothing. Even went on "Stop Sign"'s site and had them scan, nothing.



I looked in one of my "temp" folders and there was a folder in there that had all kinds of diferent virus scaner names and also spyware and adware names. It was a long list. I deleated it. Ran a Spybot scan and it had a few hits, and so did my Adware. Logged on to the internet and had no problems. Anything else I need to look for?

 

[Brian Curry]

Try "hijack this" . It sounds like you've been hijacked by something(maybe a broken hijack). After running it go to the website iamnotageek.com. They can analize the results, if you find somethang funky.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

I'll check into that brianC. Thanks. My wife has gotten onto the computer 3 times tonight and no problems. Everything seems to be fine. Must have been that folder I found. I'll still give those a shot just to make sure. Thanks to all that posted to help. I really to appreciate it.