Web browsers stop working - one by one!

Hi, My buddy has an old emachines (T1120, 1.2 GHz Celeron, 256MB) running winxp sp2. He was running MSN Explorer for years and all of a sudden it would stop working when trying to log in to his bank and other subscription sites that require him to enter a username and password. I tried to update IE for him, and nothing helped. I looked through the settings, and can't find anything abnormal, but I'm not an expert, so if something funky has sneaked its way in, I wouldn't know what to look for.

I installed Firefox 3 and told him to use that instead. It worked fine for a while, and then he started receiving runtime error in Firefox whenever trying to access a particular subscription site which had been working fine until then. I have tried logging in to the same site and have had no problems.

So I installed Safari. It works for him, but he hates the time it takes to load, and its interface is unfamiliar to him, and he is older and not very computer literate. Then he told me Safari wouldn't work - so he had tried Firefox again and it had worked ONCE but it doesn't anymore... so now he's back on Safari again and it works!!!

I'm stumped, so I sould really appreciate any input as far as what to do here! Thanks!
-B.

Ps- I don't think it's a virus; He has the latest AVG running, although no firewall - With the small memory, AVG already is slowing it down to the ridiculous. I have installed SAS, MBAM and Spybot as well on that computer. I haven't run them lately, but they have always come up clean, since MAJORGEEKS' expert assistance in cleaning it up a couple years ago!

Pps- What about a windows clean install? Is there a thread explaining what I have to do in detail here somewhere? It's just that I don't think he has any original documentation or CD's or anything anymore (Win is genuine, though, and it's the original installation which has been on there for about 10 years, I guess...?), and as it is not my pc, I'd hate to screw something up to the point where he is unable to use it...

 

I would try a system restore to when it worked.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084

Might try a chkdsk.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

 

Has he got a recovery disk? Or is there a system recovery option in the start menu, at boot up?

256M of memory is terribly low for XP, although I do manage one machine with that spec and with SP3 upgrade on it. (Working on adding more.)

But as long as there is no critical date, reinstalling is probably your best bet.

AVG has become rather bloated, esp. for that machine. You can find AVAST here that uses fewer resources and will do a fine job. :wave:wave:wave