can't keep connected

Hi everyone,at first I thought this was a malware thing but I've been through that forum and was directed over here.The problems started a few days ago,my sister came to me saying the pc had crashed.The tool bar and all the icons had disappeared.There was no response to anything we did except the cursor would move around and in the end we had to resort to turning the computer off at the wall.After turning the pc back on the user accounts took ages to load up then there were no icons or taskbar for the first 20 minutes or so then the pc started to run but very slowly at first.Next I found that when I tried to open a folder or control panel or add/remove programs I got this error message:
"rundll32.exe-application error the application failed to initialize properly.(0xc0000142)" when trying to download things I kept getting the erorr message:"not a valid Win32 application".Those problems seemed to have stopped now but I don't know why.The problem I am still having,aside from the fact that the icons and taskbar on the desktop take a couple of seconds to appear now and they never used to, is that after 10 minutes of the pc coming on and connecting to the net no pages will load up in mozilla firefox or internet explorer even though the pc maintains that I am connected to the net.I tried disconnecting and connecting again etc but that didn't help and I've found that the only way to get the pages loading again after it stops loading them now is to reboot.Then I get another 10 minutes or so net time before the pages stop loading again.Very frustrating as you can imagine.Any advice anyone can give would be greatly appreciated.Thanks for reading.

Oh here's some info about by computer:


Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 2
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)

Motherboard
CPU Type Intel Celeron D 330, 2680 MHz (20 x 134)
Motherboard Name Gigabyte GA-8S651M-RZ(C) (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video)
Motherboard Chipset SiS 651
System Memory 224 MB (PC2700 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award Modular (07/15/04)

Display
Video Adapter SiS 650 (32 MB)
3D Accelerator SiS 315 Integrated
Monitor Philips 107E5 (GS4) [17" CRT] (CX 916294)

Multimedia
Audio Adapter SiS 7012 Audio Device

Storage
IDE Controller SiS 5513 IDE UDMA Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive WDC WD800BB-00FJA0 (74 GB, IDE)
Optical Drive PHILIPS DROM5016 (16x/50x DVD-ROM)
Optical Drive PHILIPS PBRW5232L (52x/32x/52x CD-RW)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions
C: (NTFS) 73053 MB (36904 MB free)

Network
Network Adapter SiS 900 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
Network Adapter WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface (86.29.238.72)
Modem CastleNet 56K PCI Modem #2

 

Sounds like it may be easier at this point to do a repair install (no personal info lost or erased--just rebuilds the windows structure)....... do you still have your Xp cd ?

What with the pc being so slow,it is difficult if not impossible to repair this from within windows---Have you tried booting in safe mode ? Then run something like CCleaner in safe mode http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4191.html

Just a thought ..Ultimate Ubuntu is out and is a very nice free os replacment and very easy to use and setup (shameless plug for Linux )

or reinstall the whole os from a clean hard drive(reformated--All info will be lost and machine returned to original state --(after retreiving important info--mabye with knoppix--live cd )

 

thankyou fro the reply,the pc is not running so slowly now the only real problem is the pages in firefox and internet explorer stop loading after about 10 minutes of using the net,is there any way of fixing this without system restart etc? I'm not sure if I have the XP cd,
thanks again

 

Boot in Safe Mode, click Start > Run and type msconfig and press Enter. Click the Startup tab and uncheck just about everything. Reboot in normal mode and see if your performance is better. If it is, go back into the msconfig startup list and see what programs you don't need and uninstall them, or just leave the stuff unchecked. You can start any program in the list whenever you need it, versus having it run in the background constantly.

hopperdave2000

 

Thankyou I did that and my pc seems to be running quicker but I still only have a little time on the net each time I put on the computer,it's frustrating.confused

 

Should I be posting this in Networking now? this is the problem:The problem I am still having is that after 10 minutes of the pc coming on and connecting to the net no pages will load up in mozilla firefox or internet explorer even though the pc maintains that I am connected to the net.I tried disconnecting and connecting again etc but that didn't help and I've found that the only way to get the pages loading again after it stops loading them now is to reboot.Then I get another 10 minutes or so net time before the pages stop loading again and I get the unable to connect to server page.Very frustrating as you can imagine.Any advice anyone can give would be greatly appreciated

 

I have tried turning off my firewall too and this didn't help,sorry to post so much,I'm trying to fit everything in before my time runs out and I have to reboot again!!

 

Can you check your network card properties in device manager and see if a Power Save Mode is enabled (probably in the Advanced tab)? Or maybe a Wake on Lan Mode? Disable them if enabled.
Also here are some basic troubleshooting procedures -
http://www.ezlan.net/debug.html
Good Luck

 

It may be a power management issue in windows, not your networking card. I had the same problem with Vista (yea i went to it :cry ) im not sure what the option is called in XP but i think it is the "Power Options" in the "Classic View" of the control panel.

 

Thanks very much guys,I tried that stuff but I'm still having the same problem!I'm stumped!confused Maybe I should just save as many of my files as I can and format unless anyone has got any other ideas,thanks again
L

 

Oh and a weird thing I noticed If I have signed in before the pages stop loading I can still use msn instant messenger after I can't do anything else on the net confused

 

Ok one last thought do you have any parental control type software running which may be configured wrong to only allow users to use the internet for a set amount of time?

 

No nothing like that,thanks anyway anyone else got any ideas?

 

I've just read about someone with pretty much exactly the same problem as me and they found out it was a bad installation of zonealarm,which is what I had when this started,the only way they sorted it was by doing a clean installation of zonealarm which I'm not able to do because when i try to install za again I get an error message saying that it is not a valid win32 application.I thought I had uninstalled za and have since installed ashampoo firewall but I found that there is a zonelabs file still in the system32 file on my pc I can't delete it when I try I get an error message saying cannot delete access denied make sure the disk is not full,write protected and not in use.I don't know why this is.I'm not even sure that deleting this would solve my problem but I'll try anything at this point.Thanks anyone!!!

 

Ok from that problem you just described it sounds like your physical windows structure is corrupted, IF you have a XP cd you can try to boot from the cd and do a "repair installation", if not you should have a recovery cd, the only issue with a recovery cd is that it will wipe your whole system and do a clean format probably. I would recommend backing up your data with a utility from the "backup" section of the D/L and trying to do a "repair installation" first because this will keep all of your settings and files. If that doesn't work or you don't have a XP cd you'll probably have to do a clean install. This is basically the only way to fix a windows structure corruption, unless you take your computer to a repair shop. But hey i personally believe its just easier to re-format. If you need more help ill be AIM till ummm who knows. Best of luck!

 

I don't have either cd's so I'm leaning towards reformatting.I'll just have to check with my brother if he wants to save any of his files to his memory stick thingy when he comes around tomorrow.Plus I'm too tired to do it now,it's 2:10 here! How exactly does one go about reformatting by the way? Anywho thanks so much for all your help I really appreciate it,I can be a bit dense when it comes to computers!
Thanks again
Lain

 

Umm it depends on who made your computer, most big name OEM builders like Dell put a "restore" partition in so when your computer restarts you hit like F11 or something at say the Dell screen, once again it depends on your computer and the model. If you have a question on how to do this post what kind of computer you have and ill be happy to look for you so you dont have to worry about ur internet dieing in the middle. This is the only way to reformat with out discs that i know of. No problem for the help, its what forms are for