PCA Forums

Please help me!!

Problem in short:

When I web browse, often, only a portion of the web page will load.

Steps to resolve that I have taken:

Bought a new router (was with linksys)
Re installed windows twice
Re registered mac address
Updated firmware on router

Other computers work fine on the network. I can’t think of one more thing to do to fix it, unless it is a hardware issue.

I know it looks like a homepage hijack, but im beggining to doubt that because it happens after re-installs of windows and goes away after renewing my mac address.

Windows xp home SP2
firefox 1.0.4 and IE
office 2003
lanparty 754 mobo
d-link 604 router (NAT firewall)
norton anti-virus (should i switch to Symantec corp 9.0?, someone recomended it)
windows firewall on

your web page loaded once with the following data only:

//-->Coded by Matthew Valentini - sabatur@zdnetmail.com // Defines Variables var Num; var NavNameA, NavNameB, ImgName; var Description=new Array(); // Preloads Mouse-over images1 var LoadImage1=new Image(); LoadImage1.src="images1/m42.jpg"; var LoadImage2=new Image(); LoadImage2.src="images1/m52.jpg"; var LoadImage3=new Image(); LoadImage3.src="images1/m62.jpg"; var LoadImage4=new Image(); LoadImage4.src="images1/m72.jpg"; var LoadImage5=new Image(); LoadImage5.src="images1/m82.jpg"; var LoadImage6=new Image(); LoadImage6.src="images1/m92.jpg"; var LoadImage7=new Image(); LoadImage7.src="images1/m102.jpg"; // Window status descriptions Description[4]="Forums"; Description[5]="Reviews"; Description[6]="Games"; Description[7]="Links"; Description[8]="Contact"; Description[9]="Feedback"; Description[10]="Home"; // Changes the image function NavOn(Num) { window.status=Description[Num]; ImgName="Img"+Num; HlImage="images1/m"+Num+"2.jpg"; document.images[ImgName].src=HlImage; } // Puts the image back function NavNull(Num)

thanks for the help

ps, when i re-registered my mac address with telus everything was ok. im going to reboot now. i am still looking for an answer, but it is not as urgent now.

another update: after i went to my hotmail account (where i dump junk emails) things started to grind to a halt. seems like things go ok for a while, but then start dying.

the oddest thing is that it doesnt seem to be hardware, because changing my mac address fixes things, and it doesn't seem to be a software issue because it happens after clean installs of windows. unless it is a windows problem. we all know what MS tech support will say, so i dont want to call them if i dont have to.

Okay this is how I see it:

- You've eliminated the modem and the router since other computers on the network aren't doing it.

- You say you "Re-installed Windows Twice" but was this a clean format and install, or a re-install over the existing installation? Unless you do a format and clean install you can inherit problems from the old install.

- What exactly do you mean by re-registering the MAC address? If your cable company didn't have the right MAC address for the modem then the modem wouldn't work at all and NO ONE on the network would have internet access. Or are you talking about something else? There's certainly no need to register the MAC address of your computer if you're behind a NAT router.

- About the only hardware you haven't eliminated is a bad NIC. Have you tried installing a NIC card?

Yes it was a full format.

By re-registering the MAC I mean that I made my router get a new MAC (by installing new firmware) and then telling telus that I had done so, and that I wanted them to allow a router with my new address. I registered the MAC address of the router, not my computer. If you don't register the mac of your router you cant see much of the net (one page).

I reset my network card by applying the default settings, and so far so good. That might have been the problem. I have a tendancy of fiddeling with things and seing if I could get a faster somethign or other. I set my card so that it would go for throuput rather than CPU, and I think that thats what killed it. If it happens again I will let you know, but yes, it looks like it was a problem with my netwok adapter.

i have several tech support phone numbers memorized

i phone 1-877-310-8324

say: agent... internet... highspeed... <enter my phone number>... wait until an agent picks up

thats for telus. i think i did that about 100X.

I have never had much luck making my connection faster. Oh well.

bang! shot down by Norton - Symantech will do the same thing. I remove all anti-virus software from the machine and it runs much faster. (antivirus programs on the net call their server EVERY 20 minutes whether running or not, and start going through your hard drive - problem is, it takes MORE than 20 minutes for the program to finish - excuse me while i burn rubber in reverse)

tips to a clean install - after you're done, tell control panel/ internet options to empty History, Temp files, and cookies, open index.dat, delete the contents, save under same name in the blank state, go into Windows directory, delete all files in the TEMP directory, RECENT directory, and have a minimum of files in the Task Manager, remove as many Toolbars as possible, then REBOOT COLD! now go back into control panel/add/remove programs, and remove/repair MSIE - if that doesn't get you running, reinstall the .Net upgrade and update windows as you can, reboot, and repair explorer again...

now open the advanced screen in internet options and allocate at least 1 Gigabyte HD space for your Temp Internet Files, turn down the History allocation to 2 Days, and tell explorer NEVER to refresh web pages (thats what the refresh button is for) unless you, like, run Neopets or something - in which case you'll have to set whatever works - and also disable netbui and enable TLS...

By re-registering the MAC I mean that I made my router get a new MAC (by installing new firmware) and then telling telus that I had done so, and that I wanted them to allow a router with my new address.

I don't understand this. If you have a seperate modem and router (a router after the modem) you shouldn't have to register the MAC address of the router. It's the MAC address of the modem that gets registered usually.

The problem HAS to be your computer if other computers on the LAN are unaffected. Not sure what's going on though. At this point it's trial and error. Right after a clean install you shouldn't have any problems.

I'd try another NIC if you have one lying around.


jayscybertrhs: Your help is appreciated, but I question your recommendations. In particular this:

now open the advanced screen in internet options and allocate at least 1 Gigabyte HD space for your Temp Internet Files

There is no good reason to assign more than 250Mb to Temp Internet Cache files, and some VERY good reasons to assign even less. IE has a long standing bug in it where very strange things happen if you assign too much space to the cache.

Windows by default (until SP2) used to assign a percentage of the drive size, but when drives became very large this exacerbated the problem.

Most OEM vendors use a cache size of 250. I personally set all my client's cache sizes to 149.