[IGAOMD]

A little background on what has caused this in my opinion...

My wife needed a new laptop so we went out and bought an Acer Aspire 5000. Had no problems with it until...(queue evil music) I was forced to install AOL so she could do her online classes while we were on vacation. She had to have a dialup and her family still uses it, so I figured I would install it for 2 weeks and then get rid of it when we got back home. Well once I installed AOL a couple days later we are on vacation and she boots up and when she clicks on any shortcut on her desktop it gives an hourglass but doesn't actually do anything...after a few seconds the hourglass goes away and it looks like it is idling. I checked the task manager and the computer didn't load up anything. I also noticed at this point that AOL had not started up the systray icon programs like aol dialer and aol security. So I figured reboot and maybe it's just a one time screwup. I try to reboot and it just sits there just like when I tried to run a program...so basically windows starts up and it loads the two acers progs in the systray and the volume control but not the aol tray icons, and it won't run any other program except task manager when I ctrl+alt+del, nor will it shutdown via the standard start>turn comp off>shutdown. So I held down the powerbutton and turned it off that way, when it reboots it runs some sort of a scan on the file system and then finishes starting up and comes up perfectly fine. If that was all it took to fix I would obviously not be writing this, it still does all the described problems when it starts up from time to time...it's not everytime but about half the time or so maybe. I have uninstalled AOL totally as far as I can tell, since we are back from vacation now by the way. So can anyone help me out here or suggest a prog that might be able to find a probable cause to this problem?

Edited by IGAOMD, 03 September 2006 - 04:26 PM.

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Well..... intrestingly enough I would say 1 of 2 things...

#1 there is a process in aol that actually is known for causing issues on peoples pcs, in fact its on my uncles right now up at his business office and I still cant figure out why its doing what its doing regardless of stuff I have tried, except uninstalling it fixes the issue, but he needs it...

The process name is waol.exe and for some reason, also found on google, this process has been known to totally flood the cpu and lag all issues in windows. On my uncles pc it was using 100% of cpu or so it said constantly...

Make sure you dont have that running, make sure its gone, make sure AOL is uninstalled as well as AOL CONNECTIVETY, and any other aol products ( because multiple items are installed ) check your add/remove programs to confirm this...

IF YOU DO not have waol.exe running in your list of processes then...

#2 you may have picked up a virus? Do you have protection? If not I would say try scanning with avg free from www.download.com but because your pc is already acting up and slow, it may be a real hard hat issue to even scan...

Look for waol.exe first, then I suggest giving it a viral scan. Perhaps your wife downloaded something from aol that was in fact a virus, perhaps not .

[AitrusSkyy]

Well..... intrestingly enough I would say 1 of 2 things...

#1 there is a process in aol that actually is known for causing issues on peoples pcs, in fact its on my uncles right now up at his business office and I still cant figure out why its doing what its doing regardless of stuff I have tried, except uninstalling it fixes the issue, but he needs it...

The process name is waol.exe and for some reason, also found on google, this process has been known to totally flood the cpu and lag all issues in windows. On my uncles pc it was using 100% of cpu or so it said constantly...

Make sure you dont have that running, make sure its gone, make sure AOL is uninstalled as well as AOL CONNECTIVETY, and any other aol products ( because multiple items are installed ) check your add/remove programs to confirm this...

IF YOU DO not have waol.exe running in your list of processes then...

#2 you may have picked up a virus? Do you have protection? If not I would say try scanning with avg free from www.download.com but because your pc is already acting up and slow, it may be a real hard hat issue to even scan...

Look for waol.exe first, then I suggest giving it a viral scan. Perhaps your wife downloaded something from aol that was in fact a virus, perhaps not .

[AitrusSkyy]

ps: if all else fails, when you buy an acer it has a general 1 year warranty on it, and if you really want it fixed fixed, you can for free send it in and they will send it back fixed...

visit www.fixmyacer.com for more info.

[IGAOMD]

waol is not running and there is nothing aol related in the add/remove or the task manager or the run key in the registry. The only thing she did with aol was her online classes, she actually never even started aol, all I had her do was hit the aol dialer from the aol tray icon and connect via that. I am not gonna be sending it in to acer to fix as she can't go that long without the laptop, so I am hoping someone can come up with something else. I am also trying to avoid a restore but if it must be it must be I guess...I knew I should have made a restore point before I put aol on that laptop...LoL

[AitrusSkyy]

So what about virus protection? Are you up to date on it? Have you tried ensuring you have all the latest windows updates as well? Try those items. On a side note my dad owns an acer and we had a battery issue once, we did send it in, and got it back in like 6 days . However I can understand the need for it with classes etc... you cant part it for even a few days, it is important which is why you bought it

Edited by AitrusSkyy, 12 August 2006 - 08:45 AM.

[IGAOMD]

it had anti virus while aol was installed cause it comes with it but other than that time it doesn't. So at the time this all started yes it had antivirus on it and it was up to date, also my updates are all up to date except for the ones that just came out this past tuesday which I am about to go and get now.

[IGAOMD]

well well...it seems that I can't get to the update site now...something about activex controls...it comes up with some radio button choice I let it do the recommended thing and it says it downloads something and when it tries to get updates again it does it all over again. I noticed that I have had a problem with gmails activex on her laptop not working. I went through and I am pretty sure I made sure all of the activex controls were enabled or set to prompt me.

[AitrusSkyy]

ok as annoying as this may be do this...

go to http://www.zerospyware.com

download the 15 day trial of zerospyware, install it, update it before scanning, then scan the system fully... This is the most indepth program...

It sounds like something funkified is going on with your system besides just a simple error.

[IGAOMD]

worth a shot...on a side note I ran the sfc /scannow and it didn't find anything wrong.

[AitrusSkyy]

if all else fails in updating windows, turn on auto updates and tell it to just tell you when updates are available, in about 5 min itll pop up and allow you to select the updates and install them that way if you cant do it through IE

[IGAOMD]

well the scan came back with nothing found, and auto updates are on...I just like to make sure that I get the updates by going out there to make sure.

[AitrusSkyy]

okie dokie... Well, im lost on this one if the updates dont help. Wait on keith or someone to get in here and see this.

[IGAOMD]

ok well thanks for trying...

[wannabe1]

Hi IGAOMD...

Does the Registry Editor open? Click Start, then Run, type regedit and click "Ok".

Let me know if the editor opens.

wannabe1

[IGAOMD]

I don't think I could even get the run box to open...but I am not 100% on that I tried to reboot it a few times to get it to happen again but it's acting normal at the moment.