Browser Won't Connect....last resort help before throwing computer

[Assassin X]

As you know I've made probably two topics here over....hmm... 4-5 months? This subject has been very confusing since I can't seem to pin down what is going on. I've tried other forums and everything. Course really I know you guys are smarter then anyone else. lol. This is my last attempt before I first install Win 7 over Vista. If that fails to fix my problem I will just reformat. If your wondering why would I bother for 4-5 months? Its because I just installed Vista and this is a fresh start. I didn't want to lose everything already. Spent 3 weeks tweaking the system.

 

So first off here is the problem (again):

I can surf the internet, download things...etc for about 3 days times. Then on the third day (it seems) at random while surfing nothing works related to my browsers (Firefox and IE). Anything else does such as Yahoo Messanger, Xbox 360...etc. When I try to continue surfing the net I get blank pages...aka it thinks I am disconnected. Only solution that works is restarting my computer.

 

Things I have tried to fix it:

• Winsock Fix
  
• Contacting SBC (they said I was still connected, lines were fine...etc)
  
• Contacting HP (computers maker
  
• Contacting 2Wire
  
• Defragging, Scandisking PC
  
• Going back to using System Restore (for some reason SR doesn't work)
  
• Buying new Ethernet and Phone lines
  
• Buying new Ethernet Card
  
• Buying WiFi modem instead (to see if my modem was the issue maybe)
  
• Reinstalling Firefox fresh
  
• Setting FF and IE setting to Default
  
• Disabling all firewalls
  
• Disabling all virus protection (and so on)
  
• Installing OTHER virus programs to see if they found viruses my other ones missed
  
• Messing around with various virus programs to see if certain ones set it off.
  
• Various IP commands in dos (among other IP related things...everything seems fine)
  
• Updating everything I could think of on the computer (software/hardware)
  
• Other misc things
  

 

Things I noticed:

This may or may not be related but at the time this first started (and since then) my LSP (email protection) has stopped working in my virus program. No matter what I do I can't seem to fix it. This to me screams malware or something. Which might explain my connection problem. Or maybe they are two separate issues. Either way I can't find anything on my computer after trying almost every virus program on the market (even ones recommended here).

 

So as you can see I've spent 4-5 months being very busy lol. I'm out of ideas. My last attempt was fixing Winsock...well some autofix through MS. Not sure if it did it right. I am assuming it did. But I still have my problem. So not sure what else to try. If people have no more ideas on here then I will just install Win 7 as I said over Vista to see if that does anything. Then its a reformat which will really suck. >.<

Edited January 11, 2010 by Assassin X

[dr_bowtie]

what I would do is back up all the stuff you need and wipe the drive and re-install the OS...

 

Sounds like a driver issue with the NIC...but a fresh install may fix it...

[Great_Gig]

This would be my advice and it would also protect you from anything like this happening again.

 

• Backup what you need and format/partition the drive
  
• Buy Acronis True Image or if you don't want to buy a full product (but it will pay dividends over the years), you can use Seagates Diskwizard, which is Acronis based
  
• Reinstall Vista and Activate Windows. At the point you get the system installed and set-up, but before installing anything else, image the drive with Acronis and call that image 'baseline'
  
• Next set up your system with all your common programs and essential stuff, but only reliable software and stuff you know works 100%
  
• Image again with Acronis and call this image 'interim'
  
• Now set-up the remainder of your system with everything you want on there and make a final Acronis image called 'working'
  
• Store backups
  

If you then get a problem you can easily go back and relaying an Acronis image takes minutes. Most of the time if you get a problem, just go back to your working copy.

If you want to go back to all your 100% reliable programs use interim and if the s*^% really hits the fan, or you want to start afresh, you can go right back to baseline, but without the pain of a full install and Windows activation again.

 

Acronis is simple to use and I partition my hard drive with all the Acronis Images stored on the second partition and a further set of backups on another disk, in case the first disk fails. It's probably the most useful piece of software I have ever purchased and in my early days of overclocking, it saved me from hours of tedious reinstalls, after I managed to corrupt my OS with failed and over ambitious overclocks!

 

This has let me mess about with my computer and try software out, safe in the knowledge that if I get it wrong or the stuff sucks, I am back up and running in minutes, not hours/days. Windows System Restore has many flaws and you cannot rely on it to solve all your problems. It is a very good tool, but it has it's limitations.

 

Edited January 11, 2010 by Great_Gig

[sdy284]

i chose the most violent option

[cjloki]

what I would do is back up all the stuff you need and wipe the drive and re-install the OS...

 

Sounds like a driver issue with the NIC...but a fresh install may fix it...

i like doc's advice except i'd wipe the thing without saving anything. that is unless you're positive none of of your docs or pics are corrupted. i saw a machine last week that was infected by files on someone's flash drive so i'm even more careful about what i save to disk these days....

after it's reconfigured set up a password protected administrator section in users that only you have access to...

[Assassin X]

Thc for the replies. Yeah looks like I'll reformat. I finally noticed when I restart my computer, just before it restarts my screen has a Blue Screen of Death. It still restarts fine except for the pop up about windows needing to start up normally because it had an error. So I guess windows is screwed up...sigh.