Win98se Suddenly Slow To Start

Could this be a networking issue? I have been having trouble with ie6 hanging between pages, so entered a false ip address to stop the comp. searching, which worked fine. But the settings changed again mysteriously, and went back to auto. Now I cant get a connection when I try entering a false ip. under the ppoe.
Anyway, boot time started taking twice as long about the same time, also different programs froze, including the keyboard. I ran Spysweeper by Webroot (excellent freeware) and removed a couple dozen spys and trojans. Still taking waaaaay too long to boot. Unchecked all in msconfig start to no avail. Somethings up here, and i`m thinking its to do with the networking/dsl. Opinions from the experts please? Thanks!

 

We need a little bit more information, I am a Win98 Expert myself.
What is your system Specs?
What is the DSL software you use and did you leave it active in MSconfig?
Or did it ever even start up to begin with?
Did you COMPLETELY UNCHECK EVERYTHING in MSconfig?
Or did you leave your Antivirus/firewall software active?
Have you recently Scandisked/Defragged the HDD?
Do you have a File sharing software installed?
Who is your ISP?
After it boots up, is it Just your browser that is working slowly?
Or is EVERYTHING acting slow?

Also (although this might have no bearing on anything) When you said

""so entered a false ip address to stop the comp. searching, which worked fine. But the settings changed again mysteriously, and went back to auto. Now I cant get a connection when I try entering a false ip. under the ppoe.""

How the hell do you "Enter a false IP address to stop the comp"??? Did you enter it into the PPPoE software itself, If so, What PPPoE are you using???Because I dont know of any of them that allow you to change your IP without restarting the PC, in fact, aside from the ones that are included with Static IP service, I dont know of any that even allow you to have any bearing on the IP? Or did you change the IP in the Network Stack itself? If so, good luck trying to get a connection.

Maby I did'nt understand you correctly, but if you specified a false IP address in the PPPoE software, then how in the world do you intend to get a connection? If you have Static IP service you need to enter your assigned IP address, if not, you need to leave it to "Obtain an IP address automatically."

here are a fiew more things you might want to try (unless you want to try discribing your issue and answering some of the above questions so we can try and help),,, check your "Add/Remove software" to see if there is anything on your PC you dont recognize, usually something you dont recognize is Adware, and even though your Spysweeper should be pretty good at this on it's own, I would still Strongly recomend doing this.

Repairing I.E. is also a good idea, do this by running "msinfo32", then click the "Tools" menu, and select "Internet Explorer Repair Tool", then put the dot in "Repair Internet Explorer" and hit OK.

If you have any Toolbars installed (Sutch as the Yahoo Companion toolbar for Internet Explorer), Uninstall it. Although I have nothing against the Yahoo Toolbar (Ask me about any others and you'll get quite a different answer), if one of it's files is corupted it can cause your computer (Especially your internet) to act sluggish.

Whatever you do,,, best of luck.

P.S. your punctuation is REALLY throwing me off.