Help web browsers acting very strange

When i go to open internet exploer it will not open and if I try to open fire fox it takes about 2 min and then opens but will not connect me to a web site. I have tried running my updated version of mcaffe as well as updated versions of spybot s&d and ad-aware and have come up with nothing on all three scans. Any help would be much appriciated!

 

Hi asdfa
Some more information would be helpful. Have you done any kinds of updates or new installations of software lately, including windows updates? Have you changed browsers, like from IE6 to IE7 or have you done anything differently with your internet connetion, like installing a new router or changing cable positions? Does the connection also affect your firewall? Is your connection time slowing down when you load things like the firewall or some of the messengers, which automatically connect to the internet upon bootup? Has anyone else worked on your computer lately? It's possible you have a software, hardware or malware issue. Also, what operating system are you running and how much RAM do you have?
Thanks.
abri

 

Well I just built the comp from scratch a week ago so I have installed and upgraded quite a bit. But the problems just started today. I left the computer downloading when I went to work and now things seem to have gone a bit hay-wire. I still have ie5 I belive and I just got the internet connection on monday. I have a router installed but that was done the day I got the net connection so i wouldent think thats the problem. When you say does the connection effect the fire wall i dont understand what you mean. I dont belive my connection slows done when I load programs that connect on boot. In fact all of those programs seem to be working fine. And I am the only one that uses the computer. Also im running win xp sp2 and 2g of ram. Thanks for the speedy reply

 

If you've been installing software, there should be a number of restore points. Try to go back to one from before the above statement (i.e. from before you went off to work and left the computer downloading).

If that doesn't help, then go to http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407
and go down to point 6a and click on Sun Java Runtime Environment and make sure you have the most recent version, which I think is 10. If you don't, then go to settings and add/remove programs and uninstall the older version of java and install the most recent one.

Also, with the system you describe, you should have no problem running a more recent Internet Explorer. Some people have trouble with version 7 still, but 6 is in any case better than 5.0.

If your problems started while you were downloading, it is important to know if you were downloading something like music or if you were downloading installation programs. You may have gotten some malware into your system, which you could find out most easily by working through the above-mentioned "READ & RUN ME FIRST" tutorial. In the process of working through this, you end up with a good set of tools and you will know if your problem is malware, software or hardware-based.

This would indicate it's not a hardware problem.
abri

 

Ok so I decided to drop back and punt... I went to sleep, was very tiered. But I was able to get one of the online scaners to work before I went to bed and it found nothing. I am very slowly preparing to run the second (panda active scan) My browsers seems to be functioning in some form now but they are still taking about a minute to open and connection to websites like google and yahoo very slowly.

 

If you follow the READ & RUN ME FIRST thread as exactly as possible, it gets rid of some things you aren't even looking for. I recommend it.
abri