Hanging internet

I have an ADSL connection but after say 10-12 hours it drops out. I suspect something is chewing up VM but have no idea wot. I am running Win XP with AVG as anti-virus software.

I have attached an HJT logfile, can someone please have a gander and let meknow if they can spot wot is wrong.

As an aside, there is also a lot of McAfee crap (thanks Dell) which I don't use and would like to remove but the main prob is the hanging internet.

Thanks

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2

 

Hi JD.

A couple of things. If you go here, you will find malware cleaning instructions, which it might pay to go through:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407

And you will see the following there:

Not that you did post a HJT log, but you tried to. If you want to attach something to a post, you need to follow the instructions here:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=86880

While we're at it, it isn't that your DHCP lease time is set to around 10 hours by any chance?

What about overheating issues?

Do you get any messages when it drops out?

How do you get it going again?

 

Hi GC,

I had trouble connecting to the Major Geek site as i was trying to post - getting server error messsage.

I will follow up you suggestions.

What is DHCP lease time ?

Could be overheating - how would i know ?

No messages, everything looks fine until I try to use the net for anything. In one instance i was actually uploading peer-to-peer but I still could not connect Outlook Express or my normal home page.

Only getout I have used is the start/restart button.

OK, will go and do my homework now.

Thanks,

jonny

 

start restart? meaning restarting your computer? or your modem?

 

The computer. I have another laptop on the router so unless its a port problem I think thats OK.

 

Explained here:
http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_DHCPLeaseLifeCycleOverviewAllocationReallocationRe.htm

You need to go to your router homepage to see the settings. Mine is at:
http://gateway.2wire.net

This is probably an unlikely source of your problem though. It's just an idea I had.

You can get temps by running Everest:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html
After running it, go to the "computer" section and expand it. Click on "sensor" and you will see the temperatures of your computer. I don't know a lot about what they should be, but if you post them here, someone should be able to help. You should probably watch them over a few hours to see how they are behaving too.

This may also be a low probability cause, since you can get the thing going again by rebooting. It would still be hot.

Just to clarify, you said that your connection drops out after 10-12 hours, but in your next post you said that it drops out as soon as you "try to use the net for anything".

Do you mean that you use the computer for 10-12 hours, including uploading (and downloading) files (which is Internet use), and then you try to use the net for email or surfing and that's when the connection drops out?

What sort of Internet connections do you have (wireless, ethernet, USB)?

How long has this been happening (was there a time when it wasn't happening)?

It would be interesting to see if you can also reconnect by restarting the router and/or modem, instead of rebooting your computer.

Does the laptop also have XP?.

BTW, have you at least disabled McAfee, or preferably uninstalled it (you did say you don't use it)? Just wondering if you might have two virus scanners running (you have AVG as well), which is a no-no.

 

Hi GCWesq,

I have completed the Win XP cleaning proc and will now follow up on some of your other hints. One of the problems is that the actual problem doesn't manifest itself for a period of 10 hours or more. I will let you know if it still occurs sometime tomorrow.

My connection to the router is ethernet and the computer is on 24/7. It can be working fine but then I walk the dog for a coupla hours, and when I get back everything looks fine but I cannot connect to the internet. Everything else works and there are no error messages displayed. Re-booting via the start/restart button solves the problem for another 10-12 hours before it re-occurs.

Yes, the laptop, that shares the same router, has XP and no problems.

Will get back to you later.

Jonny

 

OK. Do try rebooting the router/modem if it happens again, to see if that also works. And have a look at the other questions.
Is the laptop also on Ethernet?

 

Hi GCWesq,

Have had several more problems which I have tried to overcome myself.

CPU temp was 62C. I know this is warm but I understand it is within the parameters of the chip (Intel P4), ambient room temp is 30C. In an effort to reduce CPU temp and measure again I switched off overnight - big mistake !!

All sorts of probs trying to start in morning - 5 mins plus to boot-up, number of 'unable to initialise .....' etc. After several long-winded starts in safe mode I opted to restore 2 months back !

I have run updates etc. (and CCleaner repeatedly) and so far things are looking better (fingers crossed) and reasonably stable, although only time will tell. Current uptime is about 8 hours.

BTW, if only I had my eyes on to start with you could have come round to Boronia and kicked the box yerself.

Thanks for your help mate, update to follow.

jonny

 

NEIGHBOUR!!!! :wave
Nice to find someone else in the same hemisphere, let alone next door!

It does sound like you've got some serious stuff going on there.
Could be hardware, software, malware or all of the above.
Wondering how old your PC is, what's happening in the RAM and HDD and motherboard departments, what the history of your drivers is, any overclocking done, any loose cables, cards, cords, etc, how dusty is the inside, etc, etc, etc.

Hopefully you've fixed it though, and you won't have to worry.

BTW:

Are you sure you followed the clean-up instructions correctly. I think (from memory) part of the process was to get rid of restore points (because they might have malware in them).

I read this again and suddenly realised it was a pretty good description of ME!! :-D

 

Thanks mate. Yep, followed instructions to the letter and now seems stable.

No doubt, I'll be back after the next cock-up but til then, have a cold one on me.

 

That's good news.
As for the cold one - gonna need it tomorrow by the looks! :dancer

BTW, did you see this in the cleanup of XP (that's why I was surprised you still had restore points)? It may be a good idea to get rid of at least your more recent restore points, in case they are infected (or make sure you never use them) - that is,if you found malware in your system. I see you restored AFTER doing the cleanup, so that restore point might be good. I can't quite tell which order you did things in, but you get the point, I guess: