Certain sites/forums don't work soetimes

[Nitro]

Hey I got a weird problem here.....I can fix it by restarting, but it's hassel to restart. Here's the problem:
About half the time I turn on my computer or whatever, the internet and stuff is fine. The other half certain parts of the internet don't work.
Another problem which might be related is that my explorer often crashes too. And in that list you get when you do ctrl+alt+delete I have to manually end task on all the Iexplorers (internet explorers) I closed.

The parts of the internet or whatever that don't work are: google, local yellow pages website, alta vista, and others which I havn't noticed yet.
Although the main problem is that the JCF doesn't work (page cannot be displayed) and so does a forum in another site I visit, but the sites themself work- J2O works, JCF doesn't.

Any help is appreciated, thanks...

Oh and I use windows 98.

[Torkell]

If you haven't already done so, scan your computer for spyware and viruses. If you don't have an anti-spyware program, Spybot's quite good (and free).

[Nitro]

Scanned already plenty of times.

[Torkell]

Tried emptying the web cache? (Tools > Internet Options > Delete Files)

[Nitro]

That don't help either man...

[Torkell]

hmmm... whats your computer like, what version of ie do you use, who's your isp?

[Nitro]

IE 6.0, dunno what you mean by ISP but I doubt ISP has something to do with it (i am on ADSL btw) since it works half the time anyway.

[Anubis]

I had this kind of problems last 2 days.

[Alex]

hmm I had some sort of problem like this one... somewhere I had picked up a toolbar, which was blocking all search pages, crashed IE and more stuff... (just like you said) spybotSD couldn't find it, but you gan get information from the searchbar about the makers site, and he had a removal program. that didnt remove it, but somehow did kill it, and then I could simply uninstall it via the "install/uninstall software" button in the config menu. hope that fixes it.
(btw, if you dont use the remove program, the bar keeps comming back.)

~Alex

[Torkell]

ISP = Internet Service Provider (e.g. I use Keysurf to connect to the internet, therefore Keysurf is my ISP)

[Nitro]

I got the google toolbar...I don't believe that causes the problems.

[Alex]

I do not mean the google toobar, google toolbar is okay.
just somee differnt toolbar, somtimes colord blue somtimes gray. it is made by websearch.com or somthing. but if you don't have it, it is not likely to be your problem.

what windows do you have?

~Alex

[Nitro]

Windows 98 and I don't have those toolbars I got rid of them.

[Torkell]

Hmmm...

What message do you get when it doesn't work? Does it just sit there dong nothing (white window), or does it give a message?

[Nitro]

This page cannot be displayed.

[Torkell]

Any more, like DNS error or something?

[Nitro]

Nope.

[Nitro]

*BUMP* why doesn't the moderator of this forum help me or someone! I got this topic here for two months......if a mod notices this and edits those *'s out and has a heart s/he could also bring this to the attension of someone who will help... all I wanna do is play, I'll do less harm there hehe. [:

Derby: Content removal. A filtered expression was removed.

[Tubz]

I ask that same question everytime I post a topic. Link, if you really can't help Michael, then the lest you can do is say "Sorry, I can't help you" instead of not replying at all.

What ISP and what browser(s) do you use?

[Torkell]

Sorry for not replying earlier, I've been rather busy with deadlines and things recently.

There are a lot of things which could be causing this problem. You say it only happens about half the time you use your computer? That sounds a bit odd, usually it's all or nothing. It could be an ISP-related problem, as it only affects some sites. Another possibility is that you've picked up a nasty bit of spyware along the way. The fact that internet explorer crashes often suggests this, but the crashes could also be caused by a botched installation of something (a friend had a problem in that the adobe site would crash his computer due to some obscure javascript/flash-related bug. Never did solve that one). You could try uninstalling any software/patches that were installed just before the problem started to occur. Make sure you keep the definitions up to date in any antivirus or antispyware program you use (and you *should* be using a firewall as well as antivirus and antispyware). You could try disabling ActiveX and javascript, and see if that solves the problem.

Hmmm, come to think of it it may be hardware (the above problem seemed to involve the graphics card in some obscure way). Check any newly added hardware, try reseating it, try flashing the BIOS. Come to think of it, you could try checking the capacitors on the motherboard. There were a lot of dodgy ones at one point (thanks to some coporate espionage that went wrong). If any of the caps are bulging or leaking stuff, then the motherboard's screwed.

[Nitro]

None of that helps, it's all generic stuff.

[Torkell]

And have you tried any of them? These are all things that I can think of that could cause this problem. All are worth investigating.

[Nitro]

I doubt it's a hardware problem, I know it's not that type of problem. You do ya best I see but most the other people don't help as you see.

[Torkell]

You'd be suprised at the type of problems that are hardware-related.

Is there any more information you can give me regarding these problems? I've done the best I can with the limited information I have. Useful information would be the version of any antivirus and firewalls, your ISP, what hardware is in your computer, the full text of any error message (and IE does give longer error messages than that), details of any web filtering programs running on your computer, and anything else that seems relevant.

[Nitro]

Norton antivirus 2004 pro, no firewall, no error messages except page cannot be displayed, no web filter programs or whatever, only the google tool bar which is not the cause. My ISP is an Israeli internet company, and I have no hardware that would cause it as far as I know, plus since it only doesn't work half the time.

[Torkell]

The fact that it is an intermittent problem actually suggests hardware. And the piece of hardware that causes the problem can appear totally unrelated. I can name a few examples where an unrelated piece of hardware (or driver, for that matter) was the culprit.

I suggest you get a firewall. On a default Windows setup, there are a lot of security holes that are hard to lock down without a firewall. File sharing is one of them, and can be tricky to completely remove manually. If you want a free firewall, Zone Alarm is quite good.

Another thing to try: when this problem occurs, are you still able to ping the affected sites (if you don't know how, then go to Start and then Run, type in "command" and hit OK, type in "ping " and the site name (e.g. "ping www.google.com") and post the results)?

[Nitro]

Yes I still can ping the sites.