Browser(s) issue, need a bit of input... 1

[BadBigBen]

OK, following issue on all browsers (FF, IE8, and Chrome):

while loading certain websites, e.g. TT and eBay, browsers will hang/freeze and then continue as if nothing happened.

on TT it will hang loading the page, I have to hit the shortcut a few times before it loads the website (quickest way) or wait a bit and then it will load the site. While I am waiting I can browse on other tabs with no problem except those two sites I mentioned already.

on eBay, when I hit browse to see all auctions I have saved, it will freeze the browser and I can't interact with the browser at all, background apps/programs are accessible via ALT+TAB and function normally, after a while it will continue to load the website and I can access the auctions, but as soon as I browse one of the auctions (be it on another tab or on the same tab) it will freeze again...

thought it was Flash related, uninstalled Flash, rebooted and installed Flash... wasn't it...
IPv6 Connectivity problem... turned it off, still no go...
cleared Temp files, cache, etc. no go...
reset the winsocks... no go...
turned off AV and firewall... no go...
flushed DNS cache... no go...


yesterday, I installed FF portable, and what you know it does not hang or freeze on the above websites...

I am stumped as to where else to check... hope someone can give me a bit of information, where/what else to check...

OS: XP SP3 all updates to date...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Try this first. Go to a command prompt - START RUN type CMD (hit enter) Do a "ping -t

http://www.google.com"

without the quotes. Wait 5 minutes and do a CTRL C. See what percentage of packets were lost. If very low amount was lost (0 - 2%) it's NOT your internet connection.

I'm going to throw something out there - malware. Have you done any malware scans? Some products to try - TDSS Killer and MalwareByte's Anti-malware. Run in that order. If it finds things, get back to us and I'll tell you one more thing to run AFTER those two.

BBB - wrote that BEFORE I saw who had posted it. Sorry for the "explaining it to a 10 year old" perspective.

 

[BadBigBen]

Goom, no worry...

No packet-loss at all... (should have also mentioned on the parallel install of Win7, I do not have that problem, so it is definitely an OS setting/tweak/etc.)
Malware scan was also done, from within the OS as well as from the above mentioned Win7 install... non found...

though, thanks for the input...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[mscallisto]

Hi BBB

Is your startup memory use high and is so can you reduce some of the TSR's loading at startup? [ Start > MSConfig > Startup tab ]


Any new add-ons that may be causing trouble? try disabling each to see if problem disappears.

Any visible process hogging cpu at time of problem?
Ctrl-Alt-Del Process tab

Again like goombawaho said...we know you know how to do this stuff

Viel Glück

 

[BadBigBen]

Mscallisto,

Start-up memory usage is normal... (I control what starts up with Windows, and delete items that are just not necessary, e.g. Adobe ARM or Adobe Speedup, etc.)
Add-on: tested even with all add-ons off... still same situation...
No process hogging CPU time...

Like I said, this one has me stumped... I know that FF and Chrome do use the same settings (internet settings) that IE uses, and the portable version (which has all the plugins of the installed version) of FF exhibits non of the symptoms at all...

if it all boils down, I may just have to reload Windows (Inplace Upgrade) and see if that fixes the issue... but that would leave me with lots of questions as to how, why it happened, and I'd be non-the-wiser...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[mscallisto]

BBB

on the parallel install of Win7, I do not have that problem

That may rule out network problems and leave only memory and disk access (the only two things that immediately come to mind that could start slow then speed up when access becomes available) Have you tested memory and disk for problems?

Of course a bad .dll or other system file could possibly be a problem, have you tried a SFC /scannow?

I too have had this problem in the past and normally after a day of trying everything I simply re-install to save time but it would be nice to finally find a cure for what may be the same problem.

Sam

 

[goombawaho]

I wouldn't even have posted if I knew it was BBB. You would always be at least a half step ahead of me.

 

[BadBigBen]

@Sam,

Memory is fine and works like a charm (4GB under XP and 12 GB under Win7)...
SFC /SCANNOW, I must admit haven't done that yet... probably, due to the fact that I don't have an XP CD yet with a full update yet (SP3 and all the updates up til today)...

@Goom,

thanks for the compliments... I don't consider myself as to being a step ahead of you or others, I just tend to think along different lines at times
what gets me, though, is that this is my own personal computer and I have no idea what is causing the issue...
probably some setting in the registry, that does not affect the portable version of FF, but all other browsers I have tried (and I will not pollute my OS with either Opera nor Safari )...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

That's the old "not supposed to happen to me syndrome". I'm triply upset when I have a problem I can't fix.

SFC /scannow might be the next logical step if you can do it rather than reload.

 

[Geates]

How long has this been happening? Does it happen upon first visit or always?

Here's a BIG stretch! Might these particular sites point to files located on an "unmounted" storage device like an unspun harddrive? I ask because my temp directory and localhost are not on the system drive and I have had to wait a brief moment for the HDD to spin up.

-Geates

 

[goombawaho]

How would EBAY & TekTips be on his hard drive?? Just sayin'

 

[Geates]

How would EBAY & TekTips be on his hard drive??

You might want to read my post again. I said nothing of a sort.

-Geates

 

[goombawaho]

I believe you did. The sites would have to be downloaded onto the unmounted volume.

 

[Geates]

So if I have a cookie from site X on my machine that means I downloaded site X to my HDD?

What I was trying to convey is that it is not inconceivable that a website may reference a file that it had previously stored in a currently inaccesssible location.

-Geates

 

[goombawaho]

I see. Agreed - a long shot.

 

[BadBigBen]

@ Geates,
>> How long has this been happening?
about six months or more... didn't really phase me before, since I was using Win7 (dual boot) a lot since then, but as most others I have lots of software that is installed on the XP side that I use often...

>> Does it happen upon first visit or always?
Always...

>> Might these particular sites point to files located on an "unmounted" storage device like an unspun harddrive?
No, cookies are deleted once I exit the browser, as are the Internet Tempfiles (IE) and the cache (FF)... and all drives on my machine do not spin down, except when I turn off the machine...

@ Goom,
I skipped the SFC /SCANNOW and did an Inplace Upgrade Install (that caused me a bit of a grieve in itself more on that later), after having applied all updates, same symptoms persist on both FF and IE (which was reinstalled completely)...

now to the Repair Install, well this mainboard of mine has USB3, FireWire, and BlueTooth, and the repair got stuck on the 34 Minute mark... since it is a dual boot system, both OS's on the same HDD, and XP having rewritten the MBR, I was unable to access Win7... I had moved to a new appartment and some of my stuff is still in boxes, I did not have a Win7 DVD at hand to fix the boot issue, had to wait a whole day to be able to burn one (did this then at work), so that I could burn another XP SP3 CD (since I thought that the other I burned might have been messed up, integrated drivers and Hotfixes etc.) so that I could redo the repair install... as I had mentioned earlier, the mainboard has devices that the install CD did not have drivers for (and the other one had wrong drivers) it got stuck on the 34 minute mark, I then had to disable USB3, Firewire and Bluetooth, so that the install would continue, which it did thankfully, but then came the update marathon, even with a 32Mbit line it still took more than an hour...

so now I'm open to new suggestions as to where to look...




Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[BadBigBen]

I've decided to axe the XP install on this PC. I moved it to an older PC, in case there are a few programs and information that I still need (notes, Outlook account log-ins, etc.), and to just go ahead and use Win7 from now on...

PS: I know it has to be some setting or other in the OS, seeing that it isn't hardware, or system files (these got replaced through the Repair Install) or IE 8 files... but it escapes me where in the registry these might be hiding...

Thanks all for the valuable input...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[mscallisto]

Thanks for the follow-up post and I agree sometimes you need to bite-the-bullet and move on.

Sam

 

[BadBigBen]

Addendum: Eureka!!!

I finally found out what the problem was, or better said where it came from.

Windows, by default uses the Nagle Algorithm, I had forgotten that it was turned off so that small packets would get send right away, due to latencies that I have had on the Telephone-DSL line from my previous ISP.

I stumbled across the solution, or the cause of the problem, because I activated it under Windows 7 and strangely it exhibited the same issues. Turning the algorithm back on, the problem ceased to exist...

under the following reg-key, one looks for the NIC (by IP):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces

TcpAckFrequency if set to 0 (default) it is on and 1 it is off..
TCPNoDelay if set to 0 it's on (by default this key does not exist) and setting it to 1, turns it off...

so if someone has similar problems, then please check those reg-keys and adjust accordingly.


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[rclarke250]

Nice catch.