PC Pals Forum
Technical Help & Discussion => Windows PCs & Software: Help, News & Discussion => Topic started by: TR on May 13, 2003, 13:54
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Help.. since last week-end my pc seems to be running very slow and pages not loading and taking ages to load, I thought it was my ISP but changed to another.. and it's worse.
Running win xp home and AMD 1800xp >:(
Tried all the obvious..temp files / cookies etc any other suggestions will be greatly appreciated
Hookstar
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Is it all sites or just problems with us again Hook?
If its all sites did you by chance download the latest XP updates just prior to this happening ?
There is a known problem with that slowing XP down,theres a thread on Pals somewhere :-*
Edited to add this :
http://pc-pals.com/index.php?board=49;action=display;threadid=3299
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Sandra :o
Its all sites, and I havn't dowloaded no updates for 6 months or more. this started last Sat morning and wasnt downloading or anything.
Hookstar
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Have you checked for spyware hookstar? My PC was running slow last week, after running Adaware (http://www.lavasoft.de/) and removing a few bits and bobs its working fine now.
Just a thought ;D
DJ1UK
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Just another thought, Hookstar, without wishing to state the bleeding obvious, but are you certain XP hasn't been quietly downloading updates in the background? The Auto Update feature will do this, but can be told not to.
For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know, you can find Auto Update in System Properties. [Win] + [Pause/Break] is a handy shortcut, or right click the My Computer desktop icon and select Properties.
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Are you running narrowband or broadband? Cable or ADSL? What ISP are you using?
I've noticed there seems to be quite a few denial of service attacks running about just now >:( but I doubt that's the problem.
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Hi Folks.. all evening its been playing up and log in at 11 45 and everything is ok ??? I wonder if its my Isp or my 56k Modem on and off all night it stutttttered between 11Kbps and now
44Kbps weird or what my bet its Isp trouble ;)
Hookstar
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Probably is ISP then Hook.
Anything on their status page(if they have one) ?
Anyone else complaining on ISPR ?
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If using 56K then remember it COULD be your phone line causing problems, but it sounds like ISP problem.
You can always call up your phone provider service line and ask them to "INCREASE THE GAIN ON THE LINE" which can sometimes give you more stable connection.
If you can get a broadband connection - you'll find the prices very competitive!
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That's a good tip ketamininja. I remember doing that myself when I was on 56k and it not only improved my connection speed but they found several other problems existed as well.
Around 3 months ago my ISP was on a go-slow for about 2 weeks but they eventually resolved the situation. I checked on ISPr but nobody else was complaining about it. :'(
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Probably too busy arguing elsewhere on ISPr ;)
Increasing the gain can be useful, but it can also increase the noise on the line that can cause the connection to drop, so you have to be careful not to go too far with it. Also BT do not like to increase the gain, so a useful tip is to say you have a deaf aunt staying and need the gain increasing for her benefit ... this usually works when BT are playing silly bergers 8)
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Pardon? ;D
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ketamininja thank you for the reply.
1, Gain maxed out.
2, 56k modem narrow >:(
3, Phoned ISP this morning they think its my IE corrupt.
I still reckon its the ISP although they deny it.
Hookstar
And Broadband in the sticks :D
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Have you got a different browser loaded? Might be worth trying something different, just in case IE IS the culprit, before messing with it
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Just had an Idea ;D
Last Jan PC Pit stop test.
Bandwidth Down 35 Kbits/sec
Bandwidth Up 52 Kbits/sec
Average Ping 265 ms
Ping Loss 0%
TCP Receive Window (default)
External IP Address 213.121.66.120
Internal IP Address 213.121.66.120
Browser MSIE 6.0
IE current cache 11 MB
IE max cache 1225 MB
Tonight PC Pit stop test
Description Your Results
Bandwidth Down 19 Kbits/sec
Bandwidth Up 27 Kbits/sec
Average Ping 296 ms
Ping Loss 0%
TCP Receive Window (default)
External IP Address 81.7.54.187
Internal IP Address 81.7.54.187
Browser MSIE 6.0
IE current cache 34 MB
IE max cache 100 MB
Just to see if anybody can see any differences ;)
Me thinks it stands out a country mile :-\
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That's an amazing difference Hook! I reckon it's your ISP. Mine went to a crawl for a while this afternoon too.
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Forgot ;D also done a test that the ISP suggested ::)
Bandwidth test
0845 11.1 kilobits per second
0808 27 Kilobits per second
Isnt 0808 .. friaco
Something wrong somewhere
Hookstar
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Try another ISP.
If in UK (sorry didn't check) go to http://www.freeuk.com (http://www.freeuk.com).
You can get a phone number without user/pass to log on. See if its just as slow with them.
If it is, then its either (a) your phone line, or (b) your modem. To test (a), take ur computer to a friends house and use the FREEUK number. if it works, its the phone line!
If not, then its your modem. Check for latest drivers (good luck!) or replace - they are quite cheap. Remember ask for HARDWARE modem.
Do no use onboard (AMR) modem - they are baaaaaad
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That's a very clever bit of advice. A PAYG ISP is always useful as a standby.
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Wellllllll after lengthy talks with ISP blah blah blah >:( they still insisted it wasn't them and to check gain on phone etc and to check for any anomilies?<< is that spelt right :D
Thought it was strange though as I ran spybot and found no spyware to speak off so ran Adaware and OHHH MY GOD :o found 74 WILD TANGENT issues and another few that Spybot didnt pick up and now everything seems to be a bit more stable coincidence or not Only time will tell.
Many thanks to those that have had an input. ;D
PS Wild Tangent was mentioned a bit earlier in another thread, be careful ;)
Hookstar
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I ran spybot and found no spyware to speak off so ran Adaware and OHHH MY GOD :o found 74 WILD TANGENT issues
Ive noticed this also, spybot maybe finds most of the stuff, but when i go to use ad-aware after running spybot, there is always something. Im not sure if people know this, but i thought it might be useful!
Run both and keep em up to date ;)
Boss
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This may be of interest too Hook.
HP's Keyboard Spyware
There is some interesting news for all you happy(?) owners of Hewlitt Packard Pavilions out there, to say the least. It seems that if you have the "One touch multimedia keyboard", you also have some spyware software by Netropa pre-installed. The executable for this is "mmkeybd.exe".
This is nothing new for HP however, since they are also the proud purveyors of other phone home apps such as Wild Tangent Games and Backweb, both of which are known to be violators of your privacy.
Similar to any trojan horse program, the keyboard pings a server at regular intervals to keep the internet connection alive when you are using a dialup connection. If you use any of the keyboard's hot keys, this software also uses redirects. HP contends that these redirects are for market research so that future keyboards will have the functions customers use most... Sure.
There is no fully satisfactory solution to this problem as far as I know. If you disable mmkeybd.exe with msconfig for example, you will lose the volume control and other internet features of the keyboard. A firewall seems to be the answer, but the executable will still try to ping every second and will continue to attempt the redirects every time you use a hot key; even if the firewall stops it from communicating, it is still using up a certain amount of your resources.
Which firewall to use is an important consideration: you will want one that works to detects and stop both incoming and outgoing communication, and many firewalls only concern themselves with the incoming signals, which are totally ineffective for most spyware. On my own PC I use ZoneAlarm and it does the job without disabling any of the keyboard's features. If you use another type of firewall, just be sure that it will detect and stop any outgoing data.
If you want to see a little more information on the subject, try this link to HP's own forum. As of the date of this writing, the link is still viable.
http://sitebilder.com/hosting/privacy/articles/hp.php
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Thanks Clive ;D bloody wild Tangent >:( seems I went off on a tangent looking for something else, nearly loaded XP again as well :o.
Hookstar
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Problem resolved thanks to BT, there was an earth leak on my line and it was corupting the information being sent to the Modem :o and in turn stopping/reloading info back and forth.
So everybody that had an input one way and another I thank you for your help ;D.
Hookstar
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That's great news Hookstar.
It's nice to know that BT can sometimes get it right :D
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That was a very interesting site, Clive. I have an HP Pavilion with multimedia keyboard and I never use the one touch buttons but do use the sound control ones. After reading all the users commments, I am going to update the keyboard driver. Also, I never knew what "Backweb" meant and thought it was something necessary to the system. I am going to uninstall it also. I would hope this will help all these files that ad-aware keep finding. Wish me Good Luck :o :)
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It's nice to know that BT can sometimes get it right
I was well impressed with BT from Initial contact on line Saturday morning, 5 mins later Tel text to say there was a fault and this morning (Sunday) BT engineer outside repairing the cables (soaked) through in a BT hole, he dried them out and remade the connections ;D and its like BB here now LOL Not!! but after a slow connection it seems like it ;)
Hookstar
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Here's another interesting article regarding HP multimedia keyboards
http://wwr.usonline.com/news/ournews.cfm?newsitem=9807
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I'd hate to see what a roomful of those would do to a company's Internet connection :( :o
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I've had this HP for 3 years and didn't know that backweb was a spyware programme pre-installed by HP. I have uninstalled it. Just as well I wasn't in any of Clive's favourite haunts ;) ;) ;)
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I downloaded the update driver which said it does away with the HP ping. Installed it but when I go into device manager and check properties for keyboard it says the driver is 2000. Any ideas?????