A computer mystery

Hi guys,

I'm having a series of software malfunctions that seem on the surface to be unrelated to one another, but I'm beginning to suspect that they might have the same root cause. I'll explain at the beginning.

The problem began when I tried to stream videos on YouTube - it would stop streaming at random intervals, even when the video itself has completely buffered, and I would have to load it fresh again. I tried to fix the issue by downloading the newest version of Adobe Flash, but that just made it worse instead...once installed, I couldn't watch any videos at all, I just got a blank screen telling me to install the latest Adobe plugin, which I just did, and reinstalling doesn't solve the problem. I figured it might be a browser problem, so I decided to try to update my current browser (Firefox).

This is where things start to get really weird. I downloaded Firefox 4, and when I tried to run it, it told me the file was corrupt and I could not proceed. I then tried downloading the latest version of Google Chrome, and once again, the file was corrupt and I could not install it. Tried downloading the latest Internet Explorer, same problem. Finally, as a last ditch measure, I tried using System Restore to bring my computer back to an earlier restore point, but it failed because it said a file could not be accessed (I tried again after disabling my antivirus, same result).

After this, I find out that my brother's computer has the exact same problem, he tried to solve it the exact same way, and encountered the exact same roadblocks.

I've never encountered anything like this before...does anyone have any idea as to what's going on? I thought it might be a virus in the network, but I ran AVG and it didn't detect anything, and other than this weird string of malfunctions, nothing important seems to have gone haywire yet.

 

If you and your brother are connecting through the same router, I'd check the router logs for hard errors (what the actual term is varies, mine calls them HEC errors) then reboot the router - probably best to pull the power from it, wait 1 minute, then reconnect power. After a few minutes, the PC's should be ready to go again.