IE Hangs then resumes.

[RevsEd]

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help me with a problem I've been having for a while now?

My machine is Windows 2000 - SP3 running IE5 (a fresh build -I rebuilt last week hoping that this would fix the problem).

The problem, whilst browsing IE will hang for anything up to two minutes (my firewall will show no incoming traffic at all), then suddenly it will pick itself up and carry on as though nothing happened. A few minutes later we go through it all again. I didn't reinstall the firewall so my machine is currently completely clean. No antivirus or anything (I am getting desperate).

After looking in to the problem, it would appear that it's common for this to happen on machines with a Network card but no network (which I had). I disabled the card - with no result, also removed network sharing from the registry (no difference), removed the bindings from the card and finally physically removed the network card from my machine. Still no difference.

I think it's some kind of TCP/IP issue as sometimes, whilst the connection is hanging, I can click send/receive and it works - and still the internet is down.

As you can imagine, this is absolutely crippling my browsing and downloading. I'm at the stage now where I'm about to rebuild again but this time without the network card.

Any help on this matter would be gratefully received.

Thanks

Darren

 

[cdogg]

So, did you try disabling or uninstalling the firewall to make sure it wasn't the culprit? Also, you didn't mention the name of the firewall.

Before you assume that it's a hardware or network configuration problem, troubleshoot software first. I would disable as much as possible and see if the problem goes away. Otherwise, a clean install without the NIC like you suggest may be the quickest route to take.

~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[RevsEd]

I thought it might be something to do with the firewall or the antivirus software I run, which I was I reinstalled and have not as yet installed either of them. This is why I didn't mention the firewall etc. as I didn't want to cloud the issue when it most definitely is not anything to do with them.

Currently, I have a W2K system, with no NIC and no additional internet software. It would appear to be quite a common problem (the NIC hanging it), but on the whole most sites seem to just disable it and it goes away. Not on my system though!

Any further help appreciated.

 

[cdogg]

No offense, but your original post is quite confusing. Could you explain what you meant by:

"...whilst the connection is hanging, I can click send/receive and it works - and still the internet is down"

Send/Receive? Are you talking about in Outlook?

~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[cdogg]

Also, what kind of connection do you have? Broadband or Dial-up?

I understand your point of excluding information to avoid an off-topic discussion, but the more you tell the better we can assist.

 

[RevsEd]

No offence taken. What I meant was (as you correctly guessed) - whilst IE is hung, I can click Send/Receive in Outlook Express and it will connect and receive email. It makes me think it's a TCP/IP problem and not related to my connection (Dial up by the way).

Since I rebuilt, I also joint another ISP and the exact same thing happens here as well - so it's not provider related. I do have Internet Information Server running which is used purely for development as I do not host my own pages. I don't know if it's possibly something to do with that?

Thanks for your time, appreciated

Darren

 

[cdogg]

Well, the next step is to test TCP/IP. The next time you're connected and IE hangs, go to Start->Run, type command and hit OK. This will take you to a command prompt where you can type something like:

ping www.google.com

-AND-

tracert www.google.com


If both commands execute without trouble while IE is hung, then the problem is not likely TCP/IP. Instead, either it's the browser itself or something running in the background that's conflicting.

 

[RevsEd]

Think I've tried this before and both time out... will confirm tonight though.

Thanks again

 

[RevsEd]

Just to confirm then Ping just timesout. Traceroute returns * for all hops (though it does display the IP it's looking for.

I carried on running Traceroute for a few minutes and you can see it suddenly kick back in when the net springs back to life.

I tried playing with IIS - and stopped FTP, SMTP and Web services whilst online and this had no effect. Depending on any further advice you may give, I think I'll delete TCP/IP and re-install, just in case it fixes something not having the NIC. If that's the same I'll go for the re-install.