IE Hangs for No Obvious Reason

[frank1492]

While using IE, there are frequent times when it appears that it
tries to refresh itself, but the page content then reappears painfully
slowly. All this time, the hourglass icon is present and the page is
totally non-functional. It is not even possible to close IE by
clicking the upper right corner, because there is no cursor arrow
(it is the hourglass icon.) Often, IE has to be closed with the
Windows Task Manager, and restarted.
I have done a Norton virus scan and everything looks clean. I
might add that this Dell Inspiron 2650 has had some odd problems,
possibly motherboard or BIOS related (desktop with flashing icons,
for example.) However, neither my e-mail program (Eudora) nor my
newsreader (Agent) experience the aforementioned IE problems.
Could someone offer a suggestion or two? Thanks very
much.
Frank

[David H. Lipman]

From: "frank1492" >

| While using IE, there are frequent times when it appears that it
| tries to refresh itself, but the page content then reappears painfully
| slowly. All this time, the hourglass icon is present and the page is
| totally non-functional. It is not even possible to close IE by
| clicking the upper right corner, because there is no cursor arrow
| (it is the hourglass icon.) Often, IE has to be closed with the
| Windows Task Manager, and restarted.
| I have done a Norton virus scan and everything looks clean. I
| might add that this Dell Inspiron 2650 has had some odd problems,
| possibly motherboard or BIOS related (desktop with flashing icons,
| for example.) However, neither my e-mail program (Eudora) nor my
| newsreader (Agent) experience the aforementioned IE problems.
| Could someone offer a suggestion or two? Thanks very
| much.
| Frank

You can have adware./ spyware and/or a virus.

First I suggest using BHOdemon v2.0 to see if the problem is a Browser Helper Object
blocking IE.
http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm

Second I suggest the following anti adware/spyware software...

Ad-aware SE
http://www.lavasoft.de/
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

SpyBot Search and Destroy:
http://security.kolla.de/

Finally, you can use the following tool to remove viruses and other malware...

Download MULTI_AV.EXE from the URL --
http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe

It is a self-extracting ZIP file that contains the Kixtart Script Interpreter {
http://kixtart.org Kixtart is CareWare } three batch files, five Kixtart scripts, one Link
(.LNK) file, a PDF instruction file and two utilities; UNZIP.EXE and WGET.EXE. It will
simplify the process of using; Sophos, Trend and McAfee Anti Virus Command Line Scanners to
remove viruses, Trojans and various other malware.

C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT -- { or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS}
This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode. This
way all the components can be downloaded from each AV vendor’s web site.
The choices are; Sophos, Trend, McAfee, Exit the menu and Reboot the PC.

You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can
download the files and perform a scan in Normal Mode. Once you have downloaded the files
needed for each scanner you want to use, you should reboot the PC into Safe Mode [F8 key
during boot] and re-run the menu again and choose which scanner you want to run in Safe
Mode. It is suggested to run the scanners in both Safe Mode and Normal Mode.

When the menu is displayed hitting 'H' or 'h' will bring up a more comprehensive PDF help
file.

To use this utility, perform the following...
Execute; Multi_AV.exe { Note: You must use the default folder C:\AV-CLS }
Choose; Unzip
Choose; Close

Execute; C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT
{ or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS }

NOTE: You may have to disable your software FireWall or allow WGET.EXE to go through your
FireWall to allow it to download the needed AV vendor related files.

* * Please report back your results * *


--
Dave
http://www.claymania.com/removal-trojan-adware.html
http://www.ik-cs.com/got-a-virus.htm

[frank1492]

Dave-
Thanks for all your suggestions. As noted, I have done
a virus scan with Nortons which was negative. I also ran
SpySweeper and it turned up a trojan and a bunch of
cookies, all of which were deleted. So far I have not had
the IE problem recur, but it may be too early to tell.
I have saved your reply for future reference just in
case the problem returns.
Thanks again,
Frank





On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 17:08:11 -0400, "David H. Lipman"
> wrote:

>From: "frank1492" >
>
>| While using IE, there are frequent times when it appears that it
>| tries to refresh itself, but the page content then reappears painfully
>| slowly. All this time, the hourglass icon is present and the page is
>| totally non-functional. It is not even possible to close IE by
>| clicking the upper right corner, because there is no cursor arrow
>| (it is the hourglass icon.) Often, IE has to be closed with the
>| Windows Task Manager, and restarted.
>| I have done a Norton virus scan and everything looks clean. I
>| might add that this Dell Inspiron 2650 has had some odd problems,
>| possibly motherboard or BIOS related (desktop with flashing icons,
>| for example.) However, neither my e-mail program (Eudora) nor my
>| newsreader (Agent) experience the aforementioned IE problems.
>| Could someone offer a suggestion or two? Thanks very
>| much.
>| Frank
>
>You can have adware./ spyware and/or a virus.
>
>First I suggest using BHOdemon v2.0 to see if the problem is a Browser Helper Object
>blocking IE.
>http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm
>
>Second I suggest the following anti adware/spyware software...
>
>Ad-aware SE
>http://www.lavasoft.de/
>http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
>
>SpyBot Search and Destroy:
>http://security.kolla.de/
>
>Finally, you can use the following tool to remove viruses and other malware...
>
>Download MULTI_AV.EXE from the URL --
>http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe
>
>It is a self-extracting ZIP file that contains the Kixtart Script Interpreter {
>http://kixtart.org Kixtart is CareWare } three batch files, five Kixtart scripts, one Link
>(.LNK) file, a PDF instruction file and two utilities; UNZIP.EXE and WGET.EXE. It will
>simplify the process of using; Sophos, Trend and McAfee Anti Virus Command Line Scanners to
>remove viruses, Trojans and various other malware.
>
>C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT -- { or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS}
>This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode. This
>way all the components can be downloaded from each AV vendor’s web site.
>The choices are; Sophos, Trend, McAfee, Exit the menu and Reboot the PC.
>
>You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can
>download the files and perform a scan in Normal Mode. Once you have downloaded the files
>needed for each scanner you want to use, you should reboot the PC into Safe Mode [F8 key
>during boot] and re-run the menu again and choose which scanner you want to run in Safe
>Mode. It is suggested to run the scanners in both Safe Mode and Normal Mode.
>
>When the menu is displayed hitting 'H' or 'h' will bring up a more comprehensive PDF help
>file.
>
>To use this utility, perform the following...
>Execute; Multi_AV.exe { Note: You must use the default folder C:\AV-CLS }
>Choose; Unzip
>Choose; Close
>
>Execute; C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT
>{ or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS }
>
>NOTE: You may have to disable your software FireWall or allow WGET.EXE to go through your
>FireWall to allow it to download the needed AV vendor related files.
>
>* * Please report back your results * *

[David H. Lipman]

From: "frank1492" >

| Dave-
| Thanks for all your suggestions. As noted, I have done
| a virus scan with Nortons which was negative. I also ran
| SpySweeper and it turned up a trojan and a bunch of
| cookies, all of which were deleted. So far I have not had
| the IE problem recur, but it may be too early to tell.
| I have saved your reply for future reference just in
| case the problem returns.
| Thanks again,
| Frank

Relize that NAV is not perfect and has been known to miss infectors. That is why the Multi
AV scanning tool exists. It helps to eliminate the "False Negative" syndrome. That is just
becuase one AV application doesn't find an infector doesn't mean that there is NO infector
at all. That being said, the Multi AV scanning tool provides scanners for; Sophos, McAfee
and Trend.

The same goes for non-viral malware. SpySweeper may miss what Ad-aware SE and/or SpyBot S&D
may find.

--
Dave
http://www.claymania.com/removal-trojan-adware.html
http://www.ik-cs.com/got-a-virus.htm