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browsers won't load pages


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#1
grice

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My father-in-law has a Dell desktop purchased within the last 6 months. It runs XP Home. He has an Adelphia cable connection. Up until recently, everything worked fine. He likes Opera, so used that as his main browser. About a week to ten days ago, he started having problems accessing any web sites. Opera seemed to start fine, seemed to find the page he wanted, would start loading it, but would never complete the load - it would eventually come up with a can't load page error.

He called Adelphia and they insisted the cable connection is fine.

He called Dell and they insisted the computer is fine, and that Opera was likely the problem. IE, however, acts the same way.

He called me. A while back I installed RealVNC on his machine so he could start it up and let me look at his machine from mine. We established a RealVNC connection very easily and I had complete and very fast control of his PC. I proceeded to check out all that I knew to check (not a lot, really), and pinged a couple of web sites by their URL. I can find nothing wrong and, with both the VNC and the pings working very well, I think its safe to say that the cable connection is good.

I uninstalled Opera, rebooted, and tried again with IE - no change.

I did a little research and found that a corrupt IP stack might cause the problem. From microsoft.com, I got the info on netshell and tried resetting the IP stack. I rebooted and tried IE again - no change.

I'm out of ideas. Any help anyone can give would be really, really appreciated.
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#2
djgotee

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and pinged a couple of web sites by their URL.

Does this mean you pinged sites from the command prompt and they went to the site?
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#3
grice

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Yes. For example, I entered "ping www.yahoo.com" and got quick responses through to yahoo.
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#4
djgotee

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That probably means your winsock files are ok then. The broswer may still be at fault though and a variety of other problems.

Sometimes malware can affect your online experience, have you gone here to check for malware:

http://www.geekstogo..._Log-t2852.html

If not, id do a complete check b4 going any further.
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#5
grice

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Okay, except . . .

They don't live close by, and, since he can't connect via a browser, he can't download the programs listed to check for malware. I'll try to get time to go visit to do the checks, but, if there's more I can check remotely in the meantime, I'd love to do it.

BTW, he uses AVG antivirus, XP firewall, and the Microsoft antispy ware. All is up to date, and his XP is set for autoupdate.
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#6
djgotee

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Ok, I have a silly thought. Have you tryed to go onl;ine via Internet Explorer yet?
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#7
grice

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You mean, have we tried using IE vice Opera to go to different web site? Yes, both before and after I uninstalled Opera.
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#8
djgotee

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Hmmmm, and using int exp, you have the same problem? Trys to load a page but fails? What type of message do you get?
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#9
grice

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A Page Cannot Be Displayed error - its like the loading is timing out. The load progress bar at the bottom of the screen shows slow progress at first, but then grinds to a halt, and eventually, the error displays.
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#10
djgotee

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Ok, its sounding more and more like a broswer related problem.

Lets go over what we think is ok....winsock files because you can do a ping to websites ok from command prompt, since you have Microsoft antispy ware and you feel secure that you dont have any bad BHO's , activeX controls or any other malwares affecting the broswer---we can count these problems out.

Heres a question....do you have a router or are you going online via a cable modem only?
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#11
grice

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No router - PC to cable modem (provided by Adelphia).
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#12
djgotee

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Ok. heres somthing else to check, your modem. Go to your device manager and check for any red or yellow points for your modem. As i recall, you might have to have drivers installed for the modem when using just a modem to go online. If you were to use a router and a modem, the drivers are not required. I th ink this is correct but of course, i myself have not used just a modem in many years. But it makes sence to me that you might need a driver for your modem and if so, there may be a problem with the modem drivers or the modem itself.
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#13
grice

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Okay, I can check that - but not tonight - they're up in years and are probably in bed. I suppose, also, its possible Adelphia upgraded modem firmware or something similar recently, but I would have thought anything like that would affect anything going thru the modem - not just the browsers?
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#14
djgotee

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Well, firmware is software for the modems hardware...so to speak.

I cant remember having a no load situation like this myself when i had a bad modem, but its always a good idea to not count out the modem as a problem.

Other things to check: disable your antivirus software and the windows firewall one at a time and see if you can get online.

Other things like what MS refers to as dll's related to your broser operation may be at fault. Doing an SFC (system file check) can somtimes eliviate this problem. Have you done an SFC?

Thers more to this too.
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#15
grice

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I did disable the firewall - without effect. I'll try disabling the anti-virus software tomorrow also when I check for conflicts.

Regarding SFC, no, I haven't - how do you do that?

I appreciate your help.
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